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WATERFORD 
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Notes on the History 
of Waterford 

Maine 



Edited by 

THOMAS HOVEY GAGE, Jr. 



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Worcester, Massachusetts 
1913 






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I have collected in these pages early descriptions of 
Waterford, Maine, accounts of incidents in its 
history and notices of a few of its inhabitants, 
which have heretofore been inaccessible or unpub- 
lished. A few explanatory notes have been added. 



I have also compiled a partial bibliography of 
^'Artemus Ward," the first to be collected. 



The four copies from the Massachusetts Archives 
with those that appear in Warren^ s excellent 
History of Waterford, complete the printing of all 
important matter in the Archives. 

T. H. G. 



CONTENTS. 



Waterford, 1803 . . 
An Evening Walk, 1830 
Waterford, 1850 . . 



The Water Cure, 1847 
Rev. Lincoln Ripley . 



Rev. Lincoln Ripley 



. Rev. Thomas T. Stone 



Daniel Chaplin 



. Elizabeth P. Peabody 
. . Thomas H. Gage 



William Warren Greene, M. D. . Thomas H. Gage 

Mary Moody Emerson . . Elizabeth P. Peabody 

Address at the one hundredth anniversary of 

the incorporation of the Town . Thomas H. Gage 

Copies of Papers in Massachusetts Archives 



Partial bibliography, "Artemus Ward." 



A DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY OF 
WATERFORD, IN THE COUNTY 
OF YORK 



By Rev. Lincoln Ripley 

August, 18031 



SITUATION AND LIMITS. 

Waterford is an inland town in the Countyjof 
York, district of Maine. It lies between 44 degrees 
and 44 degrees 8' north latitude, and between 70 
degrees 35' and 70 degrees 45' west longitude from 
London. It is distant seventy miles north from 
York, twenty northeast from the Academy at 
Fryeburg, forty-five northwest from Portland, and 
fifty west from Bowdoin College in Brunswick. It 
is bounded north by Oxford and Norway', east by 
Norway and part of Otisfield, southeast by Otis- 
field, south by Bridgeton, southwest by Lovell, 
west by the same, and northwest by part of the 
state lands. The town was originally seven miles 
and a half long, and seven wide. It was laid out in 
the year 1774 by Capt. Joseph Frye, of Fryeburg, 
Mr. Jabez Brown, of Stow, and Mr. , of 

Marlborough. When the town was incorporated, 
March 2, 1797, three tiers of lots, each containing 
one hundred and sixty acres, were annexed to other 

1 Collections | of the | Massachusetts | Historical Society | 
Vol. IX I Boston I . . . 1804. Page 137. 



8 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

tracts of land, which together compose the promis- 
ing town of Norway, in the County of Cumberland. 
Since this separation, Waterford is seven miles 
long, extending from north to south, 25 degrees 
east and six miles in width. 



HISTORY OF FIRST SETTLEMENTS. 

On the 10th of October, 1775, Mr. David 
Mc. Quain, a young man from Boston, having by 
his industry obtained about one hundred and fifty 
dollars, boldy ventured into the wilderness and 
took up his residence in the easterly part of Water- 
ford with no companion but his dog. His first 
purchase was one lot of land, for which he gave 
forty dollars. On the approach of winter he 
retreated to the milder regions whence he came. 
In the spring, 1776, he revisited his lonely cottage. 
Again he sought winter quarters in the circle of 
his connexions; but in the spring of 1777, he left 
all his former acquaintances, became a steady cul- 
tivator of his own soil, and has never since revisited 
the place of his nativity. As the wilderness around 
him was a residence of moose, bears and deer, he 
could generally obtain a supply of some kind of 
venison. After raising domestick animals, having 
no household furniture, except a pail, a dish, and 
a spoon, nis method of scalding his pork was to 
fill a trough with water, and then to put in heated 
stones until the water would scald. 

Mr. Mc. Quain continues in a state of celibacy, 
without any female person in his house or any 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 9 

housekeeper but himself. He now owns eight 
hundred acres of land in one body, besides some 
outlands. He improves one hundred and sixty 
acres, and keeps forty head of cattle. His cows 
would afford a profitable dairy, if he had a dairy 
woman; but at present he finds it most advanta- 
geous to give the milk to his hogs; and in the year 
1802, he fattened no less than thirty-three hundred- 
weight of good pork. He has a flourishing orchard 
whose fruit yields plenty of cider for himself and 
his labourers, besides many generous draughts for 
those who visit him. Necessary attention to his 
house and farm has confined him generally at 
home, and prevented a disposition to seek society 
abroad. Notwithstanding the peculiar disadvan- 
tages of his solitary condition, he has acquired by 
honest industry a handsome property, and pays 
almost double the taxes of any of his townsmen. 

Five or six years after Mr. Mc. Quain settled in 
Waterford, three other men came hither with their 
families; but unable to support their families com- 
fortably in the wilderness, they found it expedient 
to tread back their steps to an inhabited country. 
One of the same families again made a fruitless 
attempt to become naturalized to the place. In 
May, 1783, Messrs. Daniel Barker, Jonathan 
Robbins, Israel Hale, Asaph Brown, Europe 
Hamlin, and America Hamlin, with a few others, 
without any families, but with enterprising spirits, 
came and boldy pitched their wooden tents among 
the trees, and on their several lots began to expose 
to full view of the sun the uncultivated soil. Most 
of them in two or three years introduced their 



10 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

families to participate with them in their toils and 
hopeful prospects. The greater part of them 
retain their first inheritance, and some of them 
liberally enjoy the well earned fruits of their early 
labours. 

On the 8th of September in the same year, Mr. 
Phillip Hor, originally from Taunton, last from 
Brookfield, came into town to seek a lot of land 
which he had previously bought. The next June 
two of his sons came with him to make preparation 
for the removal of his family. On the approach of 
winter he returned to Brookfield, leaving his sons 
to brave the severities of a long winter in the wil- 
derness, or to let themselves in some more inhabited 
town to procure necessaries for the ensuing season. 
In June, 1785, Mr. Hor, with more courage than 
property, returned to Waterford with his wife, who 
originated from Norton, and with the remainder of 
his family. Urged by necessity, prompted by sense 
of duty, and supported by the consolations of 
religion, this pious couple with six children passed 
through almost incredible scenes of suffering. The 
principal part of their household effects was brought 
several miles on the shoulders of those who con- 
ducted them from Bridgeton to this place. Disap- 
pointed of provision previously engaged, and of a 
log-hut in which they were to have lived one season 
on a plat of ground not their own, they were 
obliged to shelter themselves in a cottage whose 
floor and covering consisted of the bark of trees. 
This was their only habitation during the space of 
nearly two years. For a whole year they were 
destitute of even a cow. Their nighest neighbour 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 11 

in the summer season was three miles distant; and 
six weeks of the following winter passed, in which 
the family saw no human being beside themselves. 
A dog was the only domestick animal they possessed, 
and on his fidelity in some measure depended their 
safety. At Bridgeton was the nearest corn mill. 
To obta'n meal therefore, they had either to carry 
grain on their backs twelve miles, or first travel 
that distance to borrow an horse, carry their grain 
the next day, return their horse. Having received 
a religious education, it was a serious trial to them 
to be deprived of the publick ministration of the 
gospel. For some time Mrs. Hor was the only 
inhabitant of Waterf ord who was in full communion 
with any christian church. Her husband and two 
sons, who first came to the town, have since glad- 
dened her heart by becoming members of the same 
body; and the joy she has expressed on beholding 
the divine word and ordinances here statedly 
administered, bore some resemblance to that of 
good old Simeon when he embraced the infant 
Saviour. 

Three months after the arrival of this family, 
Mr. Ohver Hapgood and wife emigrated hither from 
Stow. Their eldest son and first child was the 
first ever known by the present inhabitants to 
have been born in Waterford. To this child was 
given, as a birth privilege, a tract of land contain- 
ing fifty acres, which now awaits his age of man- 
hood, and which, lying near the centre of the town, 
promises a pleasant and valuable settlement. In 
March, 1786, Messrs. Nathaniel Chamberlain and 
John Chamberlain came into town from Westford. 



12 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

FACE OF THE COUNTRY, SOIL, PRODUCE AND EXPORTS. 

The land in Waterford, like that in the adjacent 
towns, is uneven. It may properly be called a land 
of hills and vallies. The hills, however, are not so 
high as to be unfit for cultivation. Rising gradu- 
ally, they afford pleasant prospects, and, with the 
vallies, are calculated for good settlements. The 
timber on what is usually termed hard-wood-land 
principally consists of beech, birch, rock and white 
maple, red oak and whitQ ash. On the low, or what 
is commonly called black land, the timber is chiefly' 
white and Norway pine, spruce and hemlock. 

Having no thermometer except what nature has 
furnished in the sensibility of the human frame, we 
are unable to form an exact comparison between 
the state of the cHmate here and that in the vicinity 
of Boston. The probability is, that there are a few 
days in the year, in which both heat and cold are 
more intense in this place, than in either Boston or 
Worcester. 

Contrary to the opinion formerly entertained of 
this part of the country, the soil is fertile; and by 
judicious culture amply rewards the labours of the 
husbandman. The land is good for all kinds of 
grain raised in New England, though it is not so 
friendly to the growth of wheat as the more level 
land which lies in the neighborhood of large rivers. 
The upland yields to the mower a desirable burden, 
and to the cattle excellent grazing. Fruit trees of 
different kinds are cultivated with success. Many 
might begin to make cider, if the expense of mills 
and the demand for apples to be otherwise used, did 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 13 

not prevent them. But the ambition of the people, 
and the numerous and flourishing young orchards 
in town afford reason to hope that we shall soon 
have a competency of both apples and cider. 

Potatoes of various kinds and of a good quality 
are here made profitable for man and beast. There 
is scarcely a better soil in any part of New England 
for the cultivation of esculent roots and herbs. 
A taste for ordinary horticulture is not uncommon 
among us; and though we live at a distance from 
market, there are several persons who begin to make 
their gardens profitable to their families and also 
to raise a surplussage of vegetables for their less 
favored neighbors. 

In good seasons, some of the inhabitants make 
their own sugar, molasses and vinegar of the juice 
of the maple. As the land becomes more cultivated 
they are more dependent on the W. I. islands. It 
is an unfavorable circumstance, that the first 
growth of maple, as also of other trees, does not 
extend its roots into the earth sufficiently deep to 
secure the trees when they become exposed to heavy 
winds. To remedy this disadvantage in regard to 
future generations, it becomes the present culti- 
vators of the soil to set out young orchards of 
maple trees in the most convenient places, having 
care to preserve such a distance between the trees 
as that the depth of the roots may ordinarily 
ensure their safety. 

Beside the timber, of which no small quantity is 
annually rafted down the river, articles of exporta- 
tion from which some profit is derived, and more 
expected, are beef, pork, butter, cheese, rye, Indian- 



14 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

corn, hops, onions, sole-shoes, barrels and firkins. 
To this list potash might have been lately added, 
but the making of it is at present neglected. 



RIVERS, STREAMS, PONDS AND CANAL. 

The unevenness of our land occasions numerous 
springs and brooks. Generally the town in this 
respect is highly favored There are here also 
thirteen ponds, which not onlyvariegate the scenery 
of the place, but afford plenty of fish, of which the 
most delicate kinds are the pike and salmon trout. 
Through the north and east sides of the town runs 
the Songo or Crooked River, on both whose sides 
are valuable lots of timber. What renders this 
river a peculiar privilege is, timber is drawn onto 
it when frozen in the winter, and in the spring con- 
ducted down the current into the great Sabago 
pond, and thence to the Sacarappa mills, near 
Portland. 

The most important benefit, however, relative 
to water carriage, is the opening of a canal from the 
centre of this town to Portland, which the people 
of Waterford contemplate as an event that will 
probably take place not many years hence. The 
situation of the ponds is highly favorable to such 
an enterprise. As neither the exact distance of 
the course which the canal must take, nor the 
descent of the ground has been ascertained; and as 
they who are best acquainted with these circum- 
stances are wholly unacquainted with the history 
of canals, no person has ventured to make an 
estimate of the expense of the undertaking. It 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 15 

has, however, been conjectured that fifty thousand 
dollars would effect it. It is almost certain that 
such a plan, whenever it shall be accomphshed, 
will increase the number of saw-mills in Waterford, 
and give the inhabitants opportunity of sawing 
their own timber; will multiply the sources and 
facilitate the operations of trade; enhance the 
value of our lands; and greatly conduce the popu- 
lation and prosperity of the town. 



ARTS, ARTIFICERS AND CURIOSITIES. 

There have been three brick-yards in the place; 
but the clay of the oldest is now exhausted. There 
is yet reason to expect a supply, and perhaps longer 
experience in the art of brick-making will augment 
the apparent value of our bricks. 

Lime-kilns are not yet known among us. A 
kind of stone has been noticed which bears some 
resemblance to lime-stone; but none that is genuine 
has been found. Neither are there here any coal- 
beds, except such as are made by the process of 
fire; and the furrows of the field and the labours of 
honest commonwealthsmen are the richest mines 
and minerals which are known in this vicinity. To 
these sources of health and independence all classes 
of people are cordially invited. 

There is a general supply of mechanicks in town. 
A saddler, hatter and clothier are exceptions. For 
ingenious men who are wiUing to live by their pro- 
fessions there is still encouragement in many of 
the common arts. 



16 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

There is at present one tavern keeper only in 
town.^ Other inhabitants occasionally entertain 
travelers. 

In one of the ponds there is found a white clay of 
a yellowish cast, which, when burned, baked, or only 
dried, makes good chalk.- Carpenters prefer it on 
account of its softness to that which is imported. 
Whether it may not be converted into whiting and 
made an useful ingredient in paints; or whether 
pipes or porcelain may not be made of it is yet to 
be determined. 

ROADS. 

It is but justice to remark that the inhabitants 
have distinguished themselves by a laudable 
ambition to make the roads through town conven- 
ient for themselves and comfortable for travelers. 
The sum of five hundred dollars is annually appro- 
priated to the mending of high-ways; and their 
appearance is in some measure characteristick of 
the industrious disposition of the people. 

MILITIA. 

In the autumn of 1799 the militia of this town 
were called upon to choose their first officers, and, 

1 Eli Longley. 

^ On the shore of Duck Pond is a deposit of infusorial earth. 
It is not a clay but a very fine white earth resembling magnesia, 
composed largely of the microscopic silicious shells of organ- 
isms called diatoms. It is used for polishing metals and as an 
absorbent in making explosives with nitro-glycerine, e.g., 
dynamite. It is sometimes called "fossil flour" and "Tripoli 
powder." 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 17 

in conformity to the laws of our country, to com- 
mence their annual military exercises. They 
accordingly assembled on the common and amicably 
elected Dr. Stephen Cummings, captain; Mr. Seth 
Wheeler, lieutenant; and Mr. James Bobbins, 
ensign, of their Company. After the inferiour 
officers were chosen, a respectable company of able 
bodied soldiers, consisting of seventy-two rank 
and file, appeared before the door of Mr. Eli 
Longley, where, by the desire of the captain, a 
prayer was made by the pastor of the parish. 

In September, 1801, a company of horse was 
formed from the militia companies of Bridgeton 
and Waterford, under Captain Kimball, Lieu- 
tenant Bobbins and Cornet Smith. 



NUMBER OF FAMILIES, RATEABLE POLLS, AND HOUSES. 

On the first of May, 1801, there were in Water- 
ford one hundred and three families and six hun- 
dred and five inhabitants. May 1, 1803, there 
were one hundred and eleven families, one hundred 
and forty-five rateable polls, and six hundred and 
sixty-eight souls. The number of rateable polls 
in March, 1786, was fourteen. 

The number of dwelling houses in town is one 
hundred and seven. Six of them are of two stories, 
eighty-six low framed, and fifteen are log houses. 
Some of the second class of houses are small, 
others are ordinary, and there is not a finished 
house in the place. There are about eighty framed 
barns; and a building has been lately erected for a 
store. 



18 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

CIVIL OFFICERS. PROFESSIONAL MEN. LEARNING. 

Of the original proprietors, Mr. Nathaniel 
Chamberlain, now merchant in Portland, was 
clerk. The first selectmen after the town was 
incorporated were: Lieut. Africa Hamlin, who was 
likewise the first town-clerk; and Messrs. Daniel 
Chaplin and Solomon Stone. These men were 
appointed assessors also, and took the first valua- 
tion of the town. Mr. Eli Longley was the first 
town-treasurer. The first justice of the peace, who 
received his commission in 1799, was Eber Rice, 
Esq.; and the first deputy sheriff, Mr. Hannibal 
Hamlin. 

No attorney has hitherto become an inhabitant 
of the town; but one of an academick education is 
soon expected.^ We have two physicians, though 
the place is considered remarkably healthful.^ 
The only person of a collegiate education in town 
is the writer of this, who was graduated at Dart- 
mouth College in 1796. 

As the original inhabitants, and indeed a large 
proportion of the present inhabitants, emigrated 
from the counties of Worcester and Middlesex, 
they, like their ancestors, are emulous of educating 
properly the rising generation. To further an object 
of such immense importance, the town has already 
built no less than six school-houses. Instead of 
employing instructors and instructresses, who 

1 Henry Farwell came in 1806. 

^ Dr. Stephen Cummings, the first physician, removed to 
Portland about 1800. Dr. Samuel Crombie and Dr. Luke 
Lincoln were the next in practice. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 19 

themselves have need to be instructed in the first 
principles of literature, the town begins to pay 
strict regard to the laws of the commonwealth 
respecting the qualifications of male and female 
teachers, and the inspection of schools. It has also 
adopted an uniform selection of school books for 
its children and youth, who manifest laudable 
ambition to understand the English language, and 
to profit by their advantages. 



RELIGION, HOUSE OF WORSHIP, ETC. 

Although many new settlements in this part of 
the country abound with sectaries, there has hith- 
erto been no appearance of more than one religious 
society in Waterford, which is Congregational. A 
few individuals profess themselves Baptists; but 
the serious of these, so far from trying to cause 
divisions among their fellow christians, seem dis- 
posed to attend constantly on the publick institu- 
tions of religion with the Congregationalists. 

Not many candidates for the ministry were 
employed as preachers in Waterford, before its 
inhabitants invited their present pastor to settle 
among them. For his pecuniary encouragement 
they offered him fifty pounds settlement, in addi- 
tion to a right of land reserved by the proprietors 
for that purpose, and an annual salary, which, for a 
new town, was decent. This invitation was 
accepted by the pastor elect, who was accordingly 
ordained Oct. 2, 1799. The ministers of the 
ordaining council were: Rev. William Fessenden 
of Fryeburg; Rev. Ezra Ripley of Concord; Rev. 



20 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

Nathan Church of Bridgeton; Rev. Samuel Hidden 
of Tamworth; Rev. Daniel Marrett of Standish; 
and Rev. John Simpkins of Brewster. 

Previously to the ordination a church was 
embodied, consisting of eight male members, who 
received into their fellowship their pastor elect by 
recommendation from the church in Barre. Eleven 
other men were admitted into the church at the 
same time. Oct. 11, the church held a meet- 
ing and unanimously chose for their deacons 
Messrs. John Nurse, Stephen Jewett and Ehpraim 
Chamberlain. On the 20th. of the same month, 
after the admission of four female members, 
the Lord's supper was, for the first time, admin- 
istered to the church of Christ in Waterford. In 
addition to the twenty members forming the church 
at the time of ordination, before the close of the 
same year, 1799, twenty-five other persons became 
members. . Of these, seven were previously mem- 
bers of other churches. The church received an 
addition of nine members in 1800, and of nine more 
in 1801. Some of these persons had been commu- 
nicants in other churches. No addition has been 
made to the church since 1801; but she has lost 
three by death and two by removal; her present 
number is therefore fifty-eight. 

In the year 1801 a good frame, 50 by 46 feet, 
was erected for a meeting-house in the centre of 
the town.^ In the summer of 1802 it was covered 
and enclosed, and it will probably be completed by 

1 This was taken down after the church at the Flat was 
built and was in part reconstructed in the present Town House. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 21 

the middle of Ocober, next. The pew ground has 
been sold for more than two thousand dollars. 
Three thousand dollars perhaps will meet the 
whole expense of finishing the house. 



BAPTISMS. MARRIAGES. DEATHS. 

Before the settlement of a minister, twelve chil- 
dren and youths had been baptized in the place 
by missionaries and neighboring clergymen. In 
1799, after ordination, the pastor baptized thirty- 
seven persons, one of whom was forty years old. 
There have been often three and four, and in one 
instance there were nineteen children presented 
for baptism at once. The number of baptisms in 
1800 was twenty-one; in 1801, fourteen; in 1802, 
seven; and hitherto in the present year, three. All 
the baptisms since the town was inhabited amount 
to ninety-four. Though it is a matter of joyful 
reflection that so many in a new town have been 
initiated into Christ's visible church, it is yet a 
melancholy truth that a far greater number of 
persons remain unbaptized. 

Twelve marriages also had been solemnized in 
town previously to Oct. 2, 1799. Since that 
period there have been married nineteen couples. 
The whole number of marriages, 31. 

It appears by our bills of mortality that fifty- 
four persons have died in Waterford since its first 
settlement. In the winter 1797, 8, the place was 
more sickly through the prevalence of the canker,^ 

^ Scarlet fever probably; possibly diphtheria. 



22 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

than it ever has been with any disease. The 
number of children and young persons who died 
that winter, is said to be thirteen. Since the com- 
mencement of the year 1799 the number of deaths 
annually has been as follows: In 1799, six; in 1800, 
four; in 1801, six; in 1802, five; and since the 
beginning of the current year, five; the whole 
number, twenty-six. Of this number, twelve were 
young children and infants; five youths; four 
middleaged persons; four past the meridian of 
life, and one upwards of three-score and ten years. 
During the four last years more persons who have 
reached and exceeded the meridian of life appear to 
have fallen victims to consumption than to any 
other disease. Several infants have died with fits; 
but among children and young people, the canker, 
accompanied sometimes with other complaints, 
has been the most prevalent and fatal disorder. 



AN EVENING WALK.i 



I took it last summer with two or three of my 
school-mates and our teacher. It was in Water- 
ford.^ You remember the Flat, as they call it; it 
was about two miles from the Flat, on a hill which 
rises above it to the north, and from which we could 
see much of the town, besides many other places 
about it. We first went to a beautiful grove in a 
pasture near a quarter of a mile from the road; then 
we turned back and went up the hill to the west. 
The land where the grove has grown up, was all 
cleared once; but the owner let the trees cover it 
again, and I wished men would do so oftener. For 
it is a very jfine place; the trees do not stand too 
thick; the ground was strewed with leaves, which 
fell in the fall, with fresh grass and wild flowers 
springing up among them; the grass and green 
shrubs grew everywhere around. There were 
many rocks in the grove, where the sheep would 
go at noon, and lie down on them under the shade. 
The cattle would sleep there, too, and be cool 
when the sun was high and the air heated. A 

^ Sketches | of | Oxford County j by Thomas T. Stone, | 
Pastor of the Church in Andover | Approved by the Com- 
mittee of the M. S. S. Union | Portland, | by Shirley and 
Hyde, | 1830. | Page 71. 

Thomas Tread well Stone, see page 76. 

^ The walk must have been up through the Plummer 
neighborhood. 



24 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

little brook out of which they would drink, flowed 
in a valley near the shade. There were places also 
where the children used to play; they would make 
two or three parties; one party would go to a large 
rock over which the trees hung their branches for a 
roof, and the others to rocks not far off; or they 
would find where two or three trees rose from one 
root and left an open place between their trunks; 
and here they would sit as if they were families, or 
visit from one house, as they called it, to another. 
Just to the north there is a farm with the house 
standing alone near a large orchard; a good man 
who once owned and took care of it, became poor, 
and, after he was old and his wife dead, gave it 
up and went out of his neighborhood and town — 
to die. Higher up the hill we saw the chimney 
and roof of another farm-house; and to the south 
and east we looked on many farms and houses, 
hills, valleys, ponds and forests. All was calm and 
pleasant, as the sun went down among bright- 
edged clouds. 

We went thence to the hill.^ The trees were all 
cleared off, the land was well fenced, the corn and 
the grass were green, and they were just beginning 
to mow. West of this hill beyond a long and wet 
valley, there is a ridge of high land, in some places 
wooded, and in other open, and showing the fields 
beyond. We saw large hills and mountains; some 
burnt over by the fires, with dead and black 
trunks rising high in the air, and others covered 
with green and branching trees. A broad, winding 

1 Beech Hill. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 25 

valley, through which a stream they call Crooked 
river bends its way through the town, spread 
between us and the mountains. The valley was 
not so lively and pleasant as the upland. One 
reason, our teacher said, is that the pine leaves are 
of a darker and gloomier hue than the leaves of 
the beech, the maple and the birch, and that the 
valley is full of pines, but the hills bore trees of 
brighter foliage. We turned our eyes from the 
north and saw a wide southern prospect. We saw 
the meeting-house^, and one or two houses near it, 
surrounded with poplars, and beyond, a mountain- 
rising gradually from the hill on which they stand 
till it ends on its south-eastern side in broken 
cliffs, or rather rocks piled on each other, with 
trees growing between the broken heaps. A plain 
and a pond are beneath the rough mountain side. 
Here is a small village,^ but it was hidden from us 
by the higher lands behind it. The pond* was in 
signt; so were the woods which sometimes touched 
the verge of it, and the new openings through them 
and the beautiful farms which rose beyond. A 
large pond^ was at the eastward; it had its head 
in low land covered with dark pine and fir; it 
spreads to the south between fine, even farms on 
the west, and cultivated hills on the south and east. 
The eastern hill was cleared earlier than any other 

1 The old church on the hill. 

2 Mt. Tire'm. 

3 The Flat. 

* Tom Pond. 

^Long Pond or McWain Pond. 



26 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

part of the town; one M' Wayne lived on it for 
years without wife or child or even a friend within 
six Of eight miles. He was alone when he opened 
the forest, — alone night and day. He died in sight 
of large and growing neighborhoods. 

The sun was down; the stars began to rise in 
the sky; before the light had gone in the west, the 
full moon arose. We could see the fields still, and 
the hills and the waters, but there was a dimness 
over them; the sounds of labor were still; the 
herds and the flocks were laid down to sleep; the 
scenes which seemed rough and broken by day 
were even and gentle beneath the thin haze of 
evening. I looked on the great earth and the 
arching sky with its stars and moon. I could not 
wish to speak; I was thinking of God. 



DANIEL CHAPLIN'S DESCRIPTION.^ 



WATERFORD. 

Waterford, Oxford Co., Maine.— This is an 
undulating town, watered by 13 ponds; sev- 
eral of them beautiful sheets of pure water. Hence 
its name. Songo or Crooked River meanders 
through the Northern and Eastern parts of the 
town affording several good Mill sites; as do also 
the streams issuing to and from several of the 
ponds. There are in the town 7 sawmills— 4 grist 
mills — 4 shingle machines — several stave and clap- 
board machines — 2 carriage shops — 2 iron foun- 
deries — A plaster mill, and a fulling and carding 
mill — 5 Blacksmiths shops — 7 shoe shops and 6 
merchants stores. There are several eminences 
in town; the most noted are Bear mountain, 
Hawk m.ountain, Mount Tire'm, Mount Reho,- 
ancl Bald pate. Bear mountain presents a bold 
granite precipice of several hundred feet, facing 
the S. W., rising up almost perpendicularly from 
the pond of its name, between which has been 

1 Daniel Chaplin, the surveyor, made the first published map 
of Waterford. This description of the town was intended 
for an edition of Hayward's New England Gazetteer which 
was not issued. 

-Southwest of Bald Pate and rising above Chaplin's Pond. 
A shout from across the pond gives a fine echo; hence its 
name. 



28 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

made the Bear Mountain road, noted as a great 
thoroughfare between Lancaster, N. H., and 
Portland, Me. Hawk Mountain is composed also 
of granite and presents a lofty mural escarpement, 
showing the appearance of a slide from the cliff. 
Mount Tire'm rises abruptly from West side of 
the center village, presenting a striking contrast in 
the scenery. Beech-hill has an extensive base, and 
is the highest elevation in town. From these 
nountains the view is extensive and sublime, 
embracing all the prominent objects between the 
Ocean and the White mountains in N. H. 

The soil of Waterford is generally fertile, pre- 
senting a great variety, favorable to the produc- 
tion of Wheat, Rye, Indian corn, Oats, Potatoes 
and grass. Some of the hills afford the best 
grazing land in the country. 

Dr. C. T. Jackson says: "I obtained specimens 
of the most remarkable soils in my rout, and exam- 
ined particularly those obtained in Waterford, 
where the farms are in a thriving condition, and 
were clothed with heavy crops of wheat and other 
grain." 

There are three religious societies, viz. : a Con- 
gregational, Methodist, and a Universalist, each of 
which have new and commodious houses of worship. 

There are three small villages: South Water- 
ford, where there are beautiful mill sites; the Flat, 
on the North-margin of Thomas pond, on a beau- 
tiful alluvial plane, here is the Hydropathic insti- 
tution. Congregational meeting house. Town house, 
and a Tannery and 2 stores; North Waterford on 
the Western bank of Songo River, where there is a 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 29 

concentration of public travel and a valuable 
water-power. Waterford is bounded North by 
Albany and Stoneham; South by Bridgton and 
Harrison; East by Norway and West by Lowell 
and Sweden. The town is 7^ miles long and 6f 
miles wide. Ratable Polls, 314; estimated popu- 
lation in 1850, 1600—44 miles N. N. W. from 
Portland — 58 S. W. from Augusta; and 14 m. W. 
of Paris. 

Waterford, Feb. 1, 1850. 

Mr. Gage,^ Sir, I have written the foregoing as 
a description of Waterford. I am aware of the 
difficulty graduating a description of suitable 
length, for a work like the N. England Gazetteer. 
You will consult Mr. Hayward and you are at 
liberty to condense, or make alterations. Some 
more statistics not now at hand may be found on 
my map of Waterford at Tapan and Bradford's, 
221 Washington St., Boston, where you will call 
and examine if you think expedient. 

I am pleased to hear that Mr. Hayward is revising 
his Gazetteer. More definite descriptions should 
be given of the country towns, especially, than we 
find in such works generally. Should you wish 
any further information, please write and I will 
cheerfully respond. 

Respectfully Yours, 

Daniel Chaplin. 



^Thomas H. Gage of Waterford, then a student in the 
Harvard Medical School Boston. 



30 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

Note. 

Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Boston, was commis- 
sioned in 1836 by Massachusetts and Maine to 
make a geographical survey of public lands Vjelong- 
ing jointly to these states and also to make a 
geographical survey of Maine. 

He made three reports. 

In his second report, covering the survey of 
1837, he mentions Waterford as follows: 

"The route from Parsonfield to Denmark, and 
from thence to Waterford, is very picturesque, and 
of an Alpine character, presenting groups of moun- 
tains rising abruptly, one behind the other, in the 
distance, while small but beautiful lakes are seen 
here and there amid an amphitheatre of hills. An 
artist would find ample scope for his pencil in 
sketching this interesting panorama. 

"At Waterford we called upon Mr. William 
Coolidge,^ who shewed us great hospitality and 
guided me to a number of localities worthy of 
examination. i 

"On Major Stone's^ farm, Mr. E. L. Hamlin 
discovered many years ago a curious rock, composed 
of phosphate of lime and quartz. Also a fine 
crystal of richly colored amethyst. It was not 
attached to rock, and probably was out of place, 
since no more have since been discovered there. 
Mr. Coolidge presented me with a mass of lepidu- 
lite like that of Paris which he found upon his farm. 



' William Coolidge and Major Theodore Stone both lived 
east of Tom Pond. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 31 

"Hawk Mountain is composed of granite, and 
presents a lofty mural escarpment, shewing the 
appearance of a slide from the cliff. This precipice 
is cut across by a huge but inaccessible dyke that 
may be seen from the road below. 

"I obtained specimens of all the most remark- 
able soils on my route, and examined particularly 
those obtained in Waterford, where the farms are 
in thriving condition, and were clothed with heavy 
crops of wheat and other grain." 

Later in the same report he gives "A Chemical 
Analysis of Soil from Major Stone's Farm, Water- 
ford." "This soil is remarkably productive and is 
in a high state of cultivation." He comments on 
the common practice among farmers to make use 
of peat, pond mud or muck to the injury of the soil; 
in one instance he observed in Waterford that a 
portion of a field on which this substance was 
placed presented a dwarfish and sickly yellow 
growth of Indian corn, while that part of the field 
not treated by it was covered with a most luxuriant 
and healthy growth of the same corn. He also 
mentions a deposit of peat "in the town of Water- 
ford in Oxford County on the CooHdge Farm." 

In his catalogue of geological specimens in the 
State Cabinet, Maine, he mentions No. 809, 
phosphate of lime, Waterford; No. 606, quartz 
crystals; No. 690, lepidulite from a boulder in 
Waterford; No. 522, granite, Waterford. 



THE WATER CURE. 



ELIZABETH P. PEABODY's' LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN 
REGISTER, MAY 1, 1847. 

For the Register. 
My Dear Friend: I see that Mr. F.^ has suc- 
ceeded in his design of engaging Dr. Kittredge to 
go to Waterford, and they have got out their 
prospectus, which I send you herewith. In many 
respects I think this establishment will be superior 
to all the other hydropathic establishments. No 
one can spring from a more disinterested spirit. 
Though I hope it will make money, mercenary 
considerations did not originate it. Mr. F. felt 
that the Water Cure gave him a new hope of hfe, 
when he had the best reasons for believing the old 
one was expiring. From a feeble stock — he is a 

'Elizabeth Palmer Peabody born May 16, 1804; passed 
her early life in Salem; taught in Boston 1822-1849; studied 
Greek with Emerson; assistant to Bronson Alcott and Dr. 
Channing; one of her sisters married Nathaniel Hawthorne; 
another married Horace Mann; introduced kindergarten sys- 
tem of instruction into the United States; edited and published 
much; died Jan. 3, 1894. A frequent visitor in Waterford. 
See the commemoration of the centenary of her birth in 
Kindergarten Review, May, 1904. 

2 Mr. Calvin Farrar graduated at Bowdoin College, 1834, 
and entered upon a course in Theology at Cambridge. He 
experienced so much benefit from the "Water Cure" at 
Brattleboro, that he was led to establish one at Waterford 
which proved successful for a few years. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 33 

very example of ruddy health — he looks as if 
disease never touched him, and he says he feels so. 
He saw his native town had the greatest advan- 
tages of scenery and water, and he cast his eyes 
on Dr. Kittredge. — Then Dr. Kittredge is in a 
flourishing practice. He gives up the certainty of a 
large income from an extensive practice, gained 
while he was an allopathic physician, and retained 
since he became hydropathic, by his success in 
that mode, under all the disadvantages of his 
present situation in Lynn. I know no similar 
instance of a disinterested sacrifice; for Dr. K. is 
not of the temperament of Mr. F. and his faith 
borrows nothing from constitutional sanguineness. 
He goes because he believes it to be his duty to 
give himself the water privileges of Waterford; 
and with no expectation of being better off in a 
pecuniary way. Now I must speak of Waterford. 
You know I was there several weeks last summer. 
It is a spot of wonderful beauty— there are four 
villages — each of which lies round a lake of its own 
and under mountains of its own. The mountains 
are abrupt and wooded to their tops, with splendid 
rocks upon them. I went up one, from which I 
could see that long chain of lakes, including the 
Sebago, which extend — I should think forty miles 
or more, opening into each other, and upon which 
there is to be a chain of steamboats next summer. 
But that was but one view from the mountain, 
which I circumambulated entirely, and from every 
side overlooked a magnificent prospect. Such a 
line of mountains circled the horizon! — their 
forms — their tints, I shall never forget. The harvest 



34 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

was just in — not quite in. The very beauty of 
these prospects is enough to cure patients of a 
certain temperament of any "ill that flesh is heir 
to," nor need you go up mountains to see this 
beauty. The roads themselves present, at every 
point, the most beautiful landscapes. I rode a 
good deal with one of the inhabitants,^ who is as 
near an elemental being as any other mortal creature 
I ever knew, who was a kind of human expression of 
the scenery, which she loved as if she was part and 
parcel of it — as she is. We were well matched; for 
she loved to show as I to see. The second day I 
was there, she carried me to a house from whose 
door I could see seven huge lakes— and such 
enchanting woods — sweeping over hills and down 
dales with a gorgeousness of color that would have 
put Allston into despair. Nay, he could not have 
looked at it — for he told me once that there were 
scenes he had not strength of body or mind to look 
at, they so overflowed with suggestions of beauty. 
I thought of this one day when I was riding with 
my friend from South to North Waterford, and we 
passed along a road which overlooked a valley, in 
which two old ladies lived, who certainly had the 
bower which of all I ever saw best imaged the 
richness we imagine of primeval Paradise. That 
day I went to the house where the Rev. Mr. Stone 
of Salem was born and bred.- It is very high — 
very near heaven — and I am sure I could not but 
think that to such a devout nature, that place 

'Probably Miss Hannah Haskins. 
''Stone hill, Gambo District. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 35 

must have been such a teacher as no foreign Uni- 
versity could compare to, and teach him 

"more of men 
Than all the Sages can." 

Another advantage. The people seem to have 
been formed by their scenery. I saw nothing that 
looked like poverty. But all was keen industry and 
cheerful sobriety; I found poetic genius there, 
"plain living, and high thinking," and it seemed 
to me a higher order of thought prevailed there 
than in any country place I ever saw. All the 
people are farmers, and I saw no vulgarity. I took 
tea at houses where no domestics were kept, and 
there was elegance and refinement, for there was 
simplicity and self-respect and gentle manners. 
The strange delusion of Millerism has spread much 
in this vicinity. I never had seen any of its vic- 
tims before, and was struck with a certain poetic 
beauty of these people, who were "waiting for the 
bridegroom," who were "tarrying in the anti- 
chamber," having "sealed them consecrate from 
all work." To be sure my common sense told me 
that there would be a reaction, bye-and-bye, which 
would be felt in their rural wealth, their health, 
and their soundness of mind, and to the great peril 
of all three. 

But this is digression. My point is, go to 
Waterford. Brattleborough is beautiful, exceed- 
ingly; I know — But Waterford lakes surpass those 
of Brattleboro' meadows; and Chesterfield moun- 
tain is but one, while the mountains in and about 
Waterford are legion. Finally, it is cheaper than 



36 HISTORY OF WATERFORD • 

any one else: a consideration to poor students. 
Would I could go with you and lave myself in 
those satin waters, and lift up my eyes again to 
those beautiful skies, and upon those grand land- 
scapes. I told you Waterford had its poets. I 
send you one piece that is in point with my subject. 



REV. LINCOLN RIPLEY 

By Thomas H. Gage 



Worcester, Mass., Aug. 16, 1899. 

My Dear Mr. Warren: I wish to thank you for 
your kind and interesting letter of the 8th inst., 
and to express my deep regret that I cannot be 
present at the celebration of the hundredth anni- 
versary of the formation of the church in Water- 
ford. I should like to hear what will be said on 
the occasion, and should very much enjoy meeting 
the people who will be there. 

I note your suggestion that I might send a letter 
to be read, and your nint that I might say some- 
thing of Mr. Ripley, and I only wish that I might 
do both in a manner befitting the occasion and the 
subject. Mr. Ripley was certainly a remarkable 
man, and was as certainly a very important factor 
in the early religious and social life and development 
of the town. In a sense I remember him well. And 
yet my remembrances are, I fear, too imperfect 
and too much disconnected to give satisfaction or 
pleasure to an audience looking for correct and 
comprehensive information upon so interesting a 
subject. Nevertheless partly because of your 
intimation that something of the sort may be 
expected of me, and partly because it is a pleasure 
to recall the little I can of so important a personage 



38 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

> 

I am tempted to send you a few disjointed remi- 
niscences. 

And first I wish to correct what I think is an 
error with regard to his birthplace. It is said in 
the history of Waterford that he was a native of 
Barre, Mass., and I must confess that I had myself, 
until quite recently, supposed this to be the fact. 
I knew that his father lived in Barre, and that the 
historian of that town, the Rev. James Thompson, 
claimed the Rev. Lincoln Ripley as one of its 
college graduates, and so, without giving the 
subject much thought I had taken it for granted 
that he was born there. But now I believe this to 
have been a mistake, and for the following reasons. 

The historians of both Barre and Concord, Mass., 
devote, properly, a very considerable space to a 
sketch of his more widely known and distinguished 
brother, Rev. Dr. Ezra Ripley, who was for much 
more than half a century the pastor of the church 
in Concord, and who died there in 1841 at the age 
of 90. Now Dr. Ezra Ripley was born in Pomfret, 
Conn., in 1751, and is said by all his biographers to 
have removed with his parents to Barre, Mass., in 
1767, when he was 16 years old. This therefore 
fixes the time of the arrival of the family in Barre, 
and, as we know that our Mr. Ripley must have 
been born about the year 1761, for he was almost 
97 when he died, in 1858, we are, I think, justified 
in concluding that his birthplace was Pomfret and 
not Barre. 

Of his father, so far as I am aware, very little is 
known, but of his mother we learn from a foot- 
note to Rev. Dr. Thompson's historical discourse 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 39 

at the centennial celebration of the incorporation 
of the town of Barre, that there is in the south 
burial place of the town a tombstone which bears 
the following inscription: "In memory of Mrs. 
Lydia Burnett, who was first consort of Mr. Noah 
Ripley, by whom she had 8 sons and 11 daughters, 
of whom 17 lived to have families. Her descend- 
ants at her death were 97 grandchildren, and 106 
great-grandchildren. She died June 17, 1816, aged 
91 years. 'Many daughters have done virtu- 
ously, but thou excellest.' " In this connection 
it may be proper to remark that Mr. Ripley has 
been often quoted as saying that he had never 
in his life seen his brothers and sisters all together. 

Mr. Ripley began his studies late. He was 36 
when he graduated at Dartmouth and 39 when he 
was ordained to the ministry, and installed over 
the church he had been instrumental in gathering 
in Waterford. That he should have been so much 
belated seems at this distance of time quite unac- 
countable, especially in view of the fact that his 
brother Ezra had graduated at Harvard at the age 
of 25, and had been already, when Lincoln was 
installed, a settled pastor for almost twenty years. 
But whatever may have been the cause of the 
delay it was more than compensated for by the 
zeal and determination with which he at once 
entered upon the work of his long and useful life. 
He had been in Waterford on Missionary service 
in 1797 and 1798, but he came to stay in 1799, and 
when he came to stay Mrs. Ripley came with him. 

Mrs. Ripley was the eldest daughter of the Rev. 
William and Phebe Bliss Emerson. Her father 



40 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

was the minister of the church in Concord at the 
outbreak of the Revolution. He was a staunch 
patriot and preached resistance to tyrants from his 
pulpit. He saw from his own doorstep on the 
morning of the 19th of April, 1775, the bloody 
fight at the old North Bridge, and was with diffi- 
culty held back by friends from a participation in 
the struggle. Later, when the war was fully on, 
he relinquished his pulpit, entered the army, 
marched with the troops as chaplain to Fort 
Ticonderoga, fell ill, was honorably discharged, 
started for his home and died before he reached 
it. His daughter, who became Mrs. Ripley was 
a lady of rare accomplishments and remarkable 
sweetness of character. Her coming was an event 
of no small significance in its bearing upon the 
social, moral and religious life of the then small 
and struggling church and community. 

Mr. Ripley was in stature below the medium 
height, but he was vigorous and strong, and of 
great physical endurance. He cultivated his land 
with his own hands, and he cultivated it well. He 
was a good farmer. His crops were abundant. His 
dairy was the finest in town, and his sheep were of 
the best. His fruit and his garden were second to 
none. I doubt not there are apple trees in town 
that still bear the fruit of scions grafted by his hand. 

In countenance and in manner he was always 
grave and serious. But he was not austere. There 
was no sourness, nor even sternness in his nature. 
His heart was tender, and his habit benevolent. 
His house and his hand were open to the poor. His 
heart was full of sympathy with the afflicted and 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 41 

the sorrowing. He loved his fellowmen, and sought 
not alone their spiritual but their temporal welfare. 

He never indulged himself in levity, and never 
even in light or trifling speech. I more than half 
believe he never knowingly spoke an idle word. 
There lingers in my mind no remembrance of even 
a playful mood with children. 

He was a rigid observer of the Sabbath. He 
would neither do himself any work on the Sabbath 
that could have been done on the previous day, or 
that could be postponed to the next, nor allow any 
member of his household to do it. No cooking, 
and no care of domestic animals, except such as 
was necessary to prevent suffering, was permitted. 
He shaved on Saturday afternoon, so that it might 
be unnecessary on Sunday. The day was given 
up entirely to religious exercises and worship. 
Neither business nor other worldly subjects were 
spoken of. I do not believe any one ever men- 
tioned such matters in his presence, or that any one 
who knew him would have the thought of doing it. 

Mr. Ripley was entirely lo^^al to his successor, 
the Rev. Mr. Douglass. Their relations were 
cordial and intimate. He was the latter's most 
faithful and efficient coadjutor. It was a very 
common custom with him to rise in his olace in 
church at some appropriate stage in the Sabbath 
exercises, and address some earnest words to the 
audience, either of the nature of exhortation, or 
by Avay of emphasizing some thought in Mr. 
Douglass' sermon which had particularly impressed 
him. A communion service rarely passed without 
some such impromptu action on his part. He was 



42 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

always impressive, and was always listened to by 
the entire audience with respect. 

He was conservative. He disliked innovation, 
religious or political, and he hated contention. In 
the matter of slavery he was for colonization 
rather than abolition, as being in his judgment the 
more just, the safer and the more peaceful way. 
His political predilections in the early part of the 
century were with the Federalists, and he thought 
the war of 1812 iniquitous. I imagine he looked 
with no dissatisfaction or marked displeasure upon 
the doings of the Hartford Convention. 

As a minister, Mr. Ripley's distinguishing char- 
acteristic was a zeal that knew no abatement, and 
that never wearied, for the spiritual welfare of his 
people. The conversion of all who were not yet 
within the fold of the church was the object of his 
persistent pursuit, and that not alone by the influ- 
ence of preaching and example, but by that of 
personal effort and solicitation. Indeed a favorite 
method with him was that of direct personal appeal 
to individuals. He labored assiduously in private 
with those whom he desired to bring to Christ. 
And he chose especially, as the objects of his 
appeals and intercedings, men of prominence, par- 
ticularly professional, whose conversion and exam- 
ple might, he thought, have weight and influence 
in the community. I have heard of many instances 
of this direct dealing, upon religious subjects, with 
prominent and even distinguished persons. A pro- 
fessional gentleman who lived many years in Har- 
rison, and who is now dead, once gave me a very 
graphic account of Mr. Ripley's personal labors 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 43 

with him. Interviews had been frequent and 
prolonged, and very earnest, and, to an extent, 
encouraging to Mr. Ripley, and yet not decisive. 
At last the good man resolved upon one more and a 
final effort, with a determination not to abandon 
the field until his purpose was accomplished. He 
visited the gentleman at his house, spent the 
afternoon, the evening, and the night — a sleepless 
night for both — a night of prayer and close personal 
dealing. The gentleman was in distress, walking 
the house in an agony of mind, Father Ripley 
meanwhile guiding, leading, praying and sympa- 
thizing, until when it was almost morning (as it 
was described to me), a sudden relief came to the 
troubled spirit, and a joyous comfort from believ- 
ing in Christ. This gentleman always felt that he 
owed his spiritual birth to Mr. Ripley, and retained 
to the end of his life an affectionate, almost filial, 
and always grateful remembrance of him. His 
subsequent character and Christian career were 
certainly ail that Mr. Ripley could have desired. 

I should like to speak of Mr. Ripley's love of 
missions, and of the pinching economies he would 
practice to save money for the cause, and I should 
be glad to say something of his interest in educa- 
tion; but this letter is already too long, and I must 
content myself with a bare allusion which may 
perhaps serve to illustrate both these prominent 
features of his character. There is in the early 
history of the church in Waterford, and, indeed, 
in the early history of the town, a remarkable and 
an honorable record of the great contribution made 
by our fathers to the Christian ministry, and inci- 



44 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

dentally to missions. Seven of their sons/ who 
had been in the early years of the present century 
borne in the arms of their mothers to the old church 
on the hill for baptism, were given opportunities 
for a liberal education and became, all of them, 
ministers of the gospel. All rose to eminence in 
their profession, and six of them became so dis- 
tinguished as scholars as to receive honorary degrees 
of Doctor of Divinity. One, at least, received the 
additional distinction of Doctor of Laws. All 
gained a more or less world-wide fame, and all were 
blessed with long and useful lives, and abundant 
honors. Now I do not believe that all this came 
about by chance. I believe there was a human 
influence, working with intelligence and system, 
and far reaching purpose for the accomplishing of 
great results, and that this influence reached the 
minds and shaped the plans of the noble fathers 
and mothers who had just associated themselves 
together in a Christian church. And I believe that 
this human influence, which under God brought 
about such great things, was exerted by the young 
and zealous pastor of the new church. It requires 
no stretch of my imagination to see in it all the 
work of the hand, and heart, and brain of Lincoln 
Ripley. 

I am, my dear Mr. Warren, very truly yours, 

THOMAS H. GAGE. 
^ See page 76. 



WILLIAM WARREN GREENE.i 



FROM AN ADDRESS BY THOMAS H. GAGE, PRESIDENT 
OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, TO 
THE MEMBERS OF THE BERKSHIRE MED- 
ICAL SOCIETY, PITTSFIELD, 1886. 

Twenty-three years ago I attended here the 
annual meeting of the Massachusetts Medical 
Society. It was a dehghtful occasion, enjoyable 
in every way. The weather was the finest in June, 
and your far-famed scenery was seen at its very 
best. The hospitalities of the people were un- 
bounded and every one, guest and host ahke, was 
happy. I met here then a young man, a personal 
friend of mine from boyhood. I had not met him 
before in many years, and strange as it may seem, 
I never met him afterward. He and I were natives 
of the same small town, among the rugged hills of 



1 William Warren Greene was born in North Waterford, 
March 1, 1831. He received his education at Bethel Academy, 
Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, Mass., and the Univer- 
sity of Michigan where he received the degree of M. D., 1855. 
He taught the first high school in Waterford; practiced med- 
icine in North Waterford for two and one-half years, then 
removed to Gray, Me., and later to Pittsfield, Mass. In 
1868 he removed to Portland. He served a few months as 
volunteer surgeon; was Professor of Surgery in the University 
of Michigan, Berkshire Medical College, Long Island College 
Hospital and in the Medical School of Maine. He died at 
sea Sept. 10, 1881, on his return from the First International 
Medical Congress at London. 



46 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

Maine. I had known well his father and his 
mother and his medical preceptor, and all his ante- 
cedents. He was then a resident of this beautiful 
town, a teacher in its medical school and a member 
of the committee of arrangements for that great 
anniversary meeting. He was rapidly rising to the 
high position he so long afterward occupied as a 
magnetic teacher, and as a bold, skillful and 
accomplished surgeon. You know the story of his 
brilliant life; how he passed from post to post of 
honor, and responsibility and usefulness as lec- 
turer upon the art he loved; how winning and 
attractive he was, and how the friendship of the 
old and of the young clung to him everywhere. 
You know how widely spread his fame became, 
attracting to him important and difficult cases 
from far and near; and how the unprecedented 
boldness and brilliancy of his operations drew to 
him the attention and the acquaintance of the pro- 
fession in foreign lands. You know all the details 
of that last journey across the ocean and his mem- 
orable participation in the work of the great 
international medical congress; and you know the 
rest, the return voyage, the fatal illness and the 
burial in the sea. But I have thought that per- 
haps you might not know, although the story has 
been often partly told, all the circumstances of his 
€arly life and how the "elements" came to be 

"So mixed in him, that nature might stand up 
And say to all the world: This was a man." 

and that possibly I might be able to supply some- 
thing that would interest you and help to make the 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 47 

narrative more complete. There is a natural and 
praise-worthy desire to learn the antecedents of one 
in whom we have been deeply interested, or who has 
distinguished himself, and there is especially a wish 
to know something of the influences that contrib- 
uted to the formation of his character. With 
regard to eminent persons such information is 
always sought and the smallest items of information 
are often the most welcome contributions. What 
a fascination attracts to the story of the life of Dr. 
Nathan Smith — his obscure birth, the privations, 
the dangers, the courage of his early youth, the 
dawn of his purpose to become a physician and the 
unconquerable perseverance and will by which he 
at last achieved the object of his ambition. And 
so with regard to the person to whom I have 
alluded. His remarkable success in his profession 
— the result not only of learning and industrious 
application but of an intuitive and inborn adapta- 
tion to the requirements, and his uncommon power 
to win the confidence and the love of men, make 
everything that discloses the sources of his gifts 
of interest to those who knew and appreciated him. 
Dr. William Warren Greene was born in the 
year 1831, in the town of Waterford and state of 
Maine, and some idea of the seclusion and the 
remoteness of the spot w^here he spent his childhood 
may be gathered from the facts that the whole 
population in the town in 1830 was but 1,123, and 
that his father's house was in one of its most remote 
and sparsely settled portions. The place of his 
birth must have been distant at least five miles 
from any village or church and hardly less than 



48 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

a mile from the nearest district school house. But 
it was in the midst of natural scenery as grand and 
as inspiring as any that New England can boast, 
even in her most favored localities. He came of 
some of the very best and staunchest of ancestral 
stock; the races that mingled in him in both lines 
of descent had been distinguished through many 
generations for enterprise and courage, for physical 
vigor, for intellectual force and for positive con- 
viction and strong religious views. 

On the paternal side, his great-grandfather, 
Lieut. Thomas Greene, was a pioneer settler of the 
town, moving from Rowley in this state with his 
whole family of eight children, at a time when the 
region was a wilderness with no openings or roads 
and no paths to guide the traveller but the Indian 
trails. He made his home within a mile of the spot 
where the subject of this notice was born, and in 
or near the very place his descendants of the same 
name still live. He brought with him a sterUng 
reputation. He had been an officer in the French 
and Indian war of 1755, and in the army of the 
Revolution. History relates of him that he was 
famous for his courage and enthusiasm in battle; 
and tradition has it that he once led his regiment 
to victory after its commander had fled. He lived 
to a great age, and, in his new home, was a prom- 
inent and useful citizen. Of his paternal grand- 
father I know nothing but that he died by an acci- 
dent; but of his father I can speak from personal 
recollection. 

Capt. Jacob H. Greene was a farmer, and some- 
thing of a mechanic. His means were very limited. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 49 

The rugged soil he tilled gave little more than a 
bare subsistence for his large family — no surplus. 
He was a man of pleasing address and dignified 
appearance; not educated, but a reader, and well 
informed and thoughtful. Upon some of the great 
subjects that even in those early days were deeply 
agitating the religious public of New England, he 
was thoroughly posted, and held very decided and 
radical views. Of these one was that of slavery, 
and he was a strong abolitionist long before it 
became common or fashionable. 

He was a decidedly and a consistently religious 
man, punctilliously attending public worship on 
the Sabbatn, with his whole family, undeterred and 
undaunted by the heat of summer or the cold of 
winter, and unprevented by the distance to be 
travelled, or the badness of the roads. 1 remember 
well Capt. Greene's full pew at church, and the 
young Dr. Greene, that was to be, as a boy. 

On the maternal side Dr. Greene's great-grand- 
father was Gen. Joseph Frye, who was the original 
grantee and the pioneer settler of the beautiful 
town of Fryeburg on the Saco River. It was from 
him that the town received its name. Gen. Frye 
belonged to a family, many of whom were distin- 
guished. He was born in Andover, Mass., in 1711, 
was justice of the peace, representative in the gen- 
eral court, and otherwise useful in the affairs of his 
native town. He served in the French and Indian 
war and was at the siege of Louisburg. He was the 
colonel of a Massachusetts regiment at the unfor- 
tunate capture of Fort William Henry, on Lake 
George, by Montcalm, in 1757, and with the rest 



50 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

of the brave garrison who surrendered there was 
subjected to the unspeakable indignities and cruel- 
ties of the French commander's allies. The his- 
torian of Andover relates some striking anecdotes 
of the dangers he encountered and of the prowess 
he displayed upon that memorable occasion. He 
was a major-general in the Revolutionary war, and 
served for a time with the troops at Cambridge 
under General Washington. He died in Fryeburg 
at an advanced age. 

Dr. Greene's mother, the grand-daughter of 
this Gen. Frye, was born in Fryeburg, in the house 
her great ancestor built. I remember her as a very 
affable, vivacious and pleasing person, winning and 
graceful in her manner and intelligent, loving chil- 
dren and loved by them, and particularly devoted 
to the welfare and advancement of her own. 

It was under such circumstances as these, as to 
time and place, and with such physical and moral 
forces uniting in him, that Greene was born. Of 
his early education and of the development of his 
character I have little occasion to speak, for the 
story has been often told, and his friends know it 
by heart. The struggle with poverty, the meagre 
opportunities, the necessity for becoming a teacher 
while yet a boy, the heroic spirit, and the buoyant 
courage that never failed — all these are known. 

I should Hke, however, if I could, to go on and 
speak of the invaluable assistance rendered in his 
preparation for the study of his profession by his 
kinsman on the father's side, the Rev. Dr. "William 
Warren, whose fame as a preacher, teacher and 
writer lingers yet in all the New England churches, 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 51 

and who early recognized the genius of the boy, 
becoming at once and thenceforward his tutor, 
adviser, patron and friend. I should like to do ttiis 
because I have no doubt that this influence was a 
determining and a controlling one in the 3^oung 
man's life, and that it served to supply to a great 
extent at least, the place of those greater oppor- 
tunities in the schools, frcm which, by lack of 
means, he was debarred. For Dr. Warren cer- 
tainly could, and doubtless did, furnish to him 
many of the advantages of a liberal education. I 
should like to continue also and say something of 
his medical preceptor,' with whom I was well 
acquainted, and who was my friend as long as he 
lived; something of his real merits, for he had 
them, and something of his faults, for he had them 
also. I should like to give you an idea of the 
unpropitious circumstances under which that med- 
ical life began which was destined to make so 
prominent a feature in the surgical history of New 
England. 

But I forbear. I have already detained you 
longer than I intended and I only hope I have not 
wearied you. I could not visit this scene of my 
distinguished townsman's early and brilliant pro- 
fessional career without availing myself of the 
opportunity to pay the tribute of an affectionate 
regard to his memory, and I could not speak of 
him without saying something of those worthy and 
excellent people whose lives and whose characters 
are in my mind so inseparably interwoven with his. 

iDr. S. C. Hunkins. 



A TRIBUTE TO MARY MOODY EMERSON^ 

By ELIZABETH P. PEABODY. 



THE LATE MISS MARY MOODY EMER- 
SON. A late paper has the announcement that 
Miss Mary Moody Emerson died at the age of 88 
in WiUiamsburg, New York, May 1st, 1863, after 
a long winter entering upon an eternal spring. 

Miss Emerson was certainly a wonderfully 
intellectual woman. From her youth she had been 
a profound student of such writers as Dr. Price 
and Dr. Samuel Clark, who shaped her metaphys- 
ical and theological creed; and she valued im- 
mensely the dogmas of the spiritual philosophy, 
and of the Arian sect. Yet it seemed to us that 
she valued any dogmas for others, rather than for 
herself, conscious as she was of that power of 
thinking, which, as she once said of adequate con- 
versation, "makes the soul." 

1 Mary Moody Emerson, the wonderful aunt and corre- 
spondent of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was a sister of Mrs. 
Lincoln Ripley and of Mrs. Robert Haskins, both of Water- 
ford. With the latter she owned "Ehn Vale" just east of 
Mutiny brook at South Waterford and lived there many 
years. Ralph Waldo Emerson has written an account of her 
in his Biographical Sketches. Some of her correspondence 
with him appears in his "Journals." Her own diaries and 
journals are in existence but have never been published. She 
was brilliant and bold intellectually and most eccentric in 
speech, dress and conduct. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 55 

She had a great heart, although she was not 
tender, Hke most women; for it was her theory that 
what was noble and prevailing in human nature was 
to be brought out by provocation rather than by 
nursing. The womanly qualities of wife and 
mother were never developed in her. But she had 
great love. The anti-slavery sentiment was the 
counterpart of her religious devotion, a flaming 
fire; and the champions of the slave awoke in her 
an enthusiasm akin to worship. She looked upon 
genius also as God's best gift to humanity; and 
whenever she discovered it she worshipped it as the 
inspiration of God. Sometimes, in her all devour- 
ing desire to find this indwelhng divinity, she was 
deceived by false appearances, and she was not 
easily undeceived by the testimony of another. 

But if she had an opportunity for personal 
examination, no sham could stand before her. She 
seemed hard — was hard— upon those who dis- 
appointed her in this regard, and was not very 
tolerant of the concentrated mediocrity of people 
in general. Even when she found genius, she 
sometimes put it to hard trials; she liked to test it, 
and where there was a tender and delicate temper- 
ament, she would miss of what she was seeking 
sometimes, because she shocked it to death. 

But there was something inspiring in her high 
tone. She could flatter genius least of all. The 
only treatment she thought worthy of it was the 
defiance which brings out its lightnings. 

She was not without sentiment— the union of 
thought with feeling; but was so far removed from 



56 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

what we call sentimental, that she impressed some 
persons as having no affection. 

This was a great mistake; her affections were 
deep, but she wished to be convinced of the integ- 
rity of her friends, and their disinterested devotion 
to truth. She hated to be flattered and coaxed 
herself, and was always on the qui vive lest she 
should be cajoled from her uncompromising inde- 
pendence. She was jealous — not only of the 
affected and conventional — but of the common, 
which Schiller, in Wallenstein, speaks of as the 
most potent enemy to life. The natural language 
of her spirit was that of Matthew Arnold, in that 
fine sonnet, where the world is boasting of its 
triumphs over 

— so many rages lulled, 
So many fiery spirits cooled down, 

So many valors long undulled, 
That yielded at last to "her frown" — 

and he replies: 

"Hast thou so keen a poison? Let me be 
Keener to slay thee, lest thou poison me!" 

She commanded the homage of her illustrious 
nephews, to whose early nurture and education 
she gave not merely the mental but the physical 
energies of the meridian of her life — no small sac- 
rifice in a person of her peculiar turn of mind, for 
she thought nothing vitally important but what 
was manifestly "making the soul." 

One of them has said of her, that to their youth, 
"her residence in the family was an element as 
great as Greece or Rome." Any woman of whom 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 57 

such a thing could be said by such a person might 
feel it was worth while to have lived amid all the 
disturbing influences of this "workday world," 
however much she might personally en'oy — con- 
templation. 

"That day without night." We trust that in 
specific form we may be allowed to drink some of 
those draughts which they have found, as they 
have confessed, "so poetic and so potent," and 
which may still be drawn from her letters and 
journals. 

But many a less nearly related person, who has 
met Miss Emerson, and been roused by one of 
her stirring questions as to "the secret of (their) 
devotion," will be thrilled at the mention of her 
death, with the feeling that a strong angel has 
joined the heavenly choir, not without having 
challenged them in her passage, with the watch- 
words of immortality. 

E. P. P. 



ADDRESS OF THOMAS H. GAGE 



ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORA- 
TION OF THE TOWN. 

Mr. President, arid People of Waterford: 

I am glad to be here upon this very interesting 
occasion. I am glad to have a small share in cele- 
brating with you the hundredth anniversary of 
Waterford's advent into the family of Massachu- 
setts towns. The day and the event are worthy of 
commemoration. And, to pause for a moment at 
this point in the town's progress for a look back- 
ward over the ways by which we and our fathers 
have been led, and forward, with such vision as we 
may, to what lies before, is a form of commemo- 
ration agreeable to our feelings, and appropriate 
to the occasion. But if for me, in the few minutes 
I shall occupy, the retrospective view shall seem 
to engage almost wholly my attention, something 
must be pardoned to long absence and very little 
knowledge of present conditions or future needs. 

I am very fond of Waterford. I am proud of my 
birth-place, of its great and surpassingly lovely 
natural attractions, of its history, of the character 
of its early settlers, and of their descendants; proud 
of the distinctions that have come to those de- 
scendants at home and abroad, and of the honors 
they have reflected upon their native town. But 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 59 

I am particularly proud of that remarkable gene- 
ration of men and women who were active upon 
the sta^e of affairs in the days of my boyhood, sixty 
years ago. Better or worthier people than they, it 
has never been my privilege to know, and I am glad 
of an opportunity to pay the small tribute of my 
respect and affection to their memory. Intelligent 
and intellectually vigorous, hospitable, neighborly, 
kind to the poor, and to those in distress, and withal 
God-fearing, and God-loving, they constituted a 
community of the very best New England type. 
Much given to reading and reflection, and scrupu- 
lously conscientious with regard to their obligations 
to each other, and to the world, they grasped the 
great moral, religious, and political questions of the 
time in which they lived with a force, and discussed 
them with a clearness of insight, nowhere surpassed. 
Their treatment of the subjects of temperance and 
anti-slavery were especially marked by the courage 
of decided conviction and almost the zeal of the 
martyrs. I love to recall the righteous indignation 
of the sturdy abolitionist. I suppose no other moral 
question ever so thoroughly stirred the hearts and 
the consciences of New England men and women 
as that of slavery. 

Waterford was settled mainly by men and women 
from the old Massachusetts counties of Worcester, 
Middlesex, and Essex; and these people were of 
the purest English extraction, direct descendants 
from original Puritan stock, and thoroughly imbued 
with the religious and political ideas of the Puritans. 
With them, therefore, paramount objects were to 
make provision for the education of their children. 



60 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

and to establish and maintain the stated worship 
of God. Nor did they deem their duty done when 
they had provided for tliemselves and their offspring. 
Their religious aims extended to and embraced a 
larger sphere. And they began very early to make 
provision for a Christian ministry in other com- 
munities, and even in far off heathen lands. To 
this end they gave of the best they had, their sons 
and their daughters, cheerfully sacrificing upon the 
altar of religion their means, their comfort, and 
their happiness. 

It was to this self-sacrificing devotion to religion, 
and to liberal education, that Waterford owed its 
pre-eminent influence among'smaller New England 
towns in the Christian world of sixty to eighty 
years ago. It was this that gave to the Christian 
ministry, and the world, such eminent scholars 
and divines as Stone, Hamlin, Warren, Haskins, 
Jewett, Haskell, Knight, and others, whose re- 
putation and achievements have reflected so im- 
perishable a lustre upon their ancestry and the 
place of their birth. What other small and com- 
paratively obscure New England town, remote 
from educational centres, whose hardy inhabitants 
extracted but a scanty living from a stubborn soil, 
ever made such a contribution to the service of God 
and humanity in a single generation as this? 
Thomas Treadwell Stone, son of an original incorpo- 
rator, life-long student, philosopher, profound think- 
er, distinguished author, and eminent Unitarian di- 
vine, of whose scholarship, high attainments, and 
Christian graces Senator Hoar of Massachusetts has 
recently spoken to me in most enthusiastic terms; 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 61 

Cyrus Hamlin, son of one of the earliest proprietors, 
missionary, educator, statesman, diplomatist, and 
eminent man of affairs, an acknowledged authority 
in both hemispheres upon the vexed "Eastern 
Question" of the relations of Turkey to Russia, 
Armenia, Greece, and, indeed, to all of Europe; 
William Warren, son of a pioneer settler, of com- 
manding presence, an intellectual giant, a leader of 
men, and a tower of strength in Congregational 
New England; Samuel Moody Haskins, son of one 
of the earliest comers, and grandson of Rev. William 
Emerson of revolutionary fame, devoted rector, 
who still at a great age, with scarcely abated 
strength, remains the beloved and venerated pastor 
of the prominent church where his ministry began ; 
Lyman Jewett, son of one of the early settlers, 
missionary to India, learned in the ancient lan- 
guages, and translator of the Scriptures into the 
Telugu tongue; Haskell, Knight, and others, loved 
and honored in the churches, and long since passed 
to their reward.^ I think this a remarkable record 
for any town. But when I consider that these emi- 
nent clergymen were all the sons of pioneer settlers 
of a small, remote, poor Massachusetts town, with 
none of the ordinary facilities for education, and 
that six out of the seven named became so distin- 
guished as scholars as to receive the honorary de- 
gree of D. D., and one of them, at least, that of 
LL. D., it seems to me more than remarkable; it 
seems wonderful. I do not believe, all things con- 
sidered, the record can be surpassed, if equalled, 
anywhere. 

^ See note at end of address. 



62 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

But the contributions of Waterford to the so- 
called learned professions have not been to the 
clerical alone. It has been liberal to the legal as 
well. It claims as its sons, Henry Carter, distin- 
guished lawyer, and incorruptible judge, long a resi- 
dent of Massachusetts, some of whose judicial 
dicisions, sustained, as they have been by the 
highest tribunals, have been famous ; Elbridge Gerry, 
eminent member of the Portland bar, who, while still 
a resident of his native town, represented his dis- 
trict in the Congress of the United States; A. S. 
Kimball, our distinguished and accomplished presi- 
dent to-day, whose graceful service upon a similar 
occasion twenty-two years ago is still fresh in our 
memory; and others of whom, unfortunately, I 
have little knowledge. 

And then, too, in the medical profession Water- 
ford claims the distinction of having been the birth- 
place of that remarkable genius Dr. William War- 
ren Greene, brilhant surgeon, fascinating teacher 
and lecturer, of magnetic presence and winsome 
ways, who, as professor of surgery in four medical 
schools, has left an enduring impression upon the 
medical times in which he lived. The attachment 
of students, and of his medical associates, to Dr. 
Greene was very remarkable. A few years ago it 
became my official duty, as president of the Massa- 
chusetts Medical Society, to visit district medical 
organizations in various parts of the Common- 
wealth, and among them the Berkshire Societ}' 
which met in Pittsfield ; and as I was casting about 
for a subject that might possibly interest my audi- 
ence it occurred to me that Pittsfield was the scene 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 63 

of Greene's earliest fame, that there he began his 
career as teacher of Surgery, and as a bold and bril- 
liant Operator, and that there he made his first and 
warmest professional attachments; and so I deter- 
mined to speak of him, to claim him as my towns- 
man, to give some idea of his remote and secluded 
birthplace, of his excellent parentage, of his meagre 
opportunities for early education, and of the steps 
by which n;s disadvantages were finally overcome. 
The subject pleased my hearers and gained their 
close attention. The gentlemen I addressed were 
glad to hear of Greene, and to know more than they 
had known before of his antecedents, and the praise 
for him that followed my remarks made me prouder 
than ever of the distinction he had reflected upon 
his and my native town. 

I wish I could go on to speak at some length of 
other exceedingly meritorious sons of Waterford, 
whose career in the profession of m.edicine has been 
an honor to themselves and to the place of their 
birth; of Douglass,^ worthy son of the great pastor; 
of Carlton,- son of Dea. Carlton of blessed mem- 
ory; of Houghton,^ long a practitioner here, and 
afterward in Portland; and of the Horrs;* all of 
whom have distinguished themselves in the com- 
munities in which they have lived. But time for- 
bids, and forbids me too the privilege of mention- 

' Dr. John A. Douglass of Amesbury, Mass. 
- Dr. Charles M. Carlton of Norwich, Conn. 
' Dr. Lewis W. Houghton. 

* Dr. William H. Horr and Dr. Orrin A. Horr, sons of Wil- 
liam Horr. Dr. Jacob L. Horr, son of Stephen Horr. 



64 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

ing, as I would like, some of the more prominent, 
determining influences which have led so many of 
the sons of this secluded but beautiful town to 
choose, in the past, the learned profession. I 
should like to speak, if I had time, of what I con- 
ceive to have been the direct and indirect influence 
in this direction of the Rev. Mr. Ripley and Mrs. 
Ripley, and of the Rev. Mr. Douglass and his ex- 
cellent wife. I have some doubt whether the people 
of the present generation fully appreciate the debt 
of gratitude Waterford owes to these remarkable 
persons. What they did to promote the interests 
of the town, and to inspire in its sons and daughters 
a love of virtue and of learning, can hardly be over- 
stated. Of this I should like to say more but 
cannot. I must proceed to other topics. 

I am expected to indulge somewhat in reminis- 
cence, a task to which I am not at all disinclined. 
And yet when I reflect that whatever of reminis- 
cence I have to offer will only be the imperfect 
recollections of childhood and very early youth, I 
am oppressed with a fear that my efforts in that 
direction will hardly equal your reasonable ex- 
pectations. At all events before I proceed I think 
I ought to "qualify," using the word in its legal 
sense. You know when a lawyer puts a witness on 
the stand the court compels him to show by some 
preliminary questions that his witness is competent, 
and this they call "qualifying." So I must make 
it appear to you that I am, or why I think I am, 
competent to the task I now undertake. 

Well it comes about in this way. My father was 
a physician in Waterford sixty years ago. He 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 65 

settled here in 1815, at the age of twenty-four, and 
rode over the hills and valleys of this and neigh- 
boring towns, in winter and summer, storms and 
sunshine, by night and by day, until he died in 
1842, at the age of fifty, literally worn out. He was 
a man of strong character, and of clear and decided 
opinions upon all subjects. Nor was he at all averse 
to maintaining and defending his opinion. In town, 
church, and parish alTairs, he was especially inter- 
ested, prominent and influential. He had a hand 
in almost every public event. Now until I was 
eight years old I was his only son, and, until I was 
eleven or twelve, I was his very frequent if not con- 
stant companion on his long and weary rides. This 
gave me an opportunity to become, for a child, 
very familiar with people, houses, and localities in 
all parts of the town, and to some extent with the 
various subjects which were then agitating the 
community. I heard these latter constantly dis- 
cussed. 

It is to these circumstances, and to these alone, 
I owe whatever right I have to speak of things so 
long ago. 

II 

I took my first ride behind a steam locomotive, 
in Waterford, sixty-three years ago, and I rode on 
a platform car. The circumstances were these: 
Mr. Cyrus Hamlin, then a student in Bowdoin 
College, who, to high qualities as a scholar, added 
rare mechanical genius, cultivated by a previous 
apprenticeship to the trade of silversmith, had 
been requested by the faculty of the college to 



66 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

make a steam locomotive to be used in illustrating 
before the classes the application of steam as a 
propelling power. To this request had been added 
the inducement — to him a very important con- 
sideration — of pecuniary compensation. The task, 
thus imposed, he had finished. The machine he 
had made had been successfully used for its in- 
tended purpose. It had, indeed, excited wide- 
spread interest, and had received high commenda- 
tion, and its success gave Mr. Hamlin a natural 
desire to bring it to Waterford, to show to his moth- 
er and friends. This he did, if my memory serves 
me, in the spring of 1834, exhibiting it in the din- 
ing room of his mother's house. Friends were in- 
vited, and among them my father, who, when he 
went, took me along, then scarcely eight years old. 
I distinctly remember how the room looked, full 
of steam with dripping walls and ceiling, and how 
at the proper time my father took his stand on the 
little platform raised on trucks, with me between 
his knees, and how the queer looking engine trun- 
dled us about the room. So let it be by all means 
remembered, if the great "iron horse" ever reaches 
Waterford, that one of the first exhibitions of steam 
locomotion in Maine was successfully made in this 
town sixty three years ago under the auspices of the 
Rev. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin. 

A proposition some sixty years ago to build a 
new Methodist meeting house in this town gave 
rise to a serious contention in that excellent denomi- 
nation. Before that the Methodists had wor- 
shipped in a secluded spot on the Sweden road, just 
west of Mutiny corner. Their meeting house was 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 67 

a low wooden structure, with a rather flat roof, 
ifcsexteriorunclapboarded, blackened and weather- 
beaten; its interior cheerless and bare, with hard 
plank benches, no adornment of any kind, and no 
conveniences for a choir. In this uncomfortable 
house the hardy, devout worshippers had gathered 
from far and near for many long years. But there 
grew up a party that wanted something better, a 
building more centrally located, in the village, with 
modern conveniences, and attractions. They con- 
tended that if the ordinances of religion were to 
reach the masses, the house of worship should be 
conveniently located, that it should be made with- 
in and without attractive to the eye, that it should 
be comfortable for the attendants, and that it 
should provide, to gratify the ear of the worship- 
pers, suitable accommodations for vocal and in- 
strumental music. To all of which it was objected 
by those who did not think a change necessary, 
that to the devout and humble worshipper religious 
service should be its own attraction, that all the 
so-called comforts and conveniences were of the 
world, worldly, and only served to distract atten- 
tion from things of more importance, and that to 
make provision for such musical entertainment as 
was suggested would be: 

"To heap the shrine of luxury and pride 
With incense kindled at the muses' flame." 

Along these lines the battle waged with varying 
fortune until at last the friends of innovation 
triumphed. A new house, built on a conspicuous 
and convenient site in the villiage, was made archi- 



68 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

tecturally attractive without, and neat and com- 
modious within, and the divisions caused by the 
contest were apparently closed. But the victorious 
party was not yet allowed to enjoy unchallenged 
the fruit of its triumph. When all was done the 
opposition sent one parting shot. A stern uncom- 
promising objector put this advertisement in a 
local paper: — ^"Lost somewhere in the town of 
Waterford the Methodist Platform. Whosoever 
will return the same shall be rewarded with a crown 
of glory that fadeth not away." But the shot fell 
harmless. The article lost does not seem to have 
been recovered. No one appears to have claimed 
the reward; — perhaps because of a doubt whether 
the advertising party would be able to deliver it. 
But be this as it may, the renovated and rehabili- 
tated church has remained ever since a power for 
good, and a blessing in the community. 



Ill 

I wonder how many persons within the sound of 
my voice remember Professor John Abbot, a 
quaint and interesting old gentleman who was an 
occasional resident here sixty years ago. 

Professor Abbot was an educated man, a grad- 
uate of Harvard College, aad had been a tutor 
there. He was a well dressed, dignified appearing 
old gentleman, a little wrong in his head at times, 
apt to be irritable, and always a terror to boys. 
Yet he rendered the town a service for which it 
owed him many years a debt of gratitude. He 
built, or caused to be built, an "observatory" at the 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 69 

top of Mt. Tire'm. I suppose all remember three 
great boulders that stand in a cluster at the very 
highest point of the mountain. Well Professor 
Abbot built a platform over those rocks, of thick 
heavy plank, supported upon large, stout timbers, 
guarded by a strong railing, supplied with seats, 
and approached by a long flight of steps; and this 
platform which outlived the storms and winds of 
many winters, always went under the name of 
Professor Abbot's "observatory." The mountain 
then was entirely bald and bare at the summit 
For an area of a hundred acres or more there was 
no sign of vegetation except a few stunted blue- 
berry bushes, so that there was nothing to obstruct 
the vision, and, from the "observatory" to East, 
West, North and South was had one of the grandest 
and most extensive views imaginable. The place 
was a great resort during the summer months for 
young and old. Young people especially visited 
it from far and near; and almost every one seemed 
moved to carve his or her name upon the wood, so 
that the platform came in time to be literally 
covered with these rude inscriptions. 

But the observatory is gone, and the beautiful 
view is now cut off by a heavy growth of trees. The 
boulders alone remain. It would be a very shrewd 
and sensible move on the part of Waterford people 
to rebuild the old Abbot "observatory," or to 
erect one more durable over these boulders, and 
to cut away the trees from the summit, so as to 
restore the unsurpassed view we had from there 
sixty years ago. To have such an attraction within 



70 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

fifteen minutes walk of the village would be a very- 
drawing card for summer visitors.^ 

IV 

Any picture of Waterford, as it was sixty years 
ago, with Miss Mary Moody Emerson left out 
would be imperfect. Not that she was particularlj'^ 
prominent in the town's activities, but because of 
her interesting personality, and her connection 
with a famous family. 

The Rev. William Emerson of Concord, Mass., 
was an ardent patriot of the revolutionary period. 
He preached resistance to tyranny from his pulpit, 
and was only prevented by the earnest solicita- 
tions of friends from active participation in the 
fight at the North Bridge, Concord, on the 19th 
of April, 1775. As it was he witnessed it from his 
own house, and became fired with enthusiasm of 
the hour, only, as it proved, to give his life an early 
sacrifice. He entered the service, went with the 
army to Ticonderoga as chaplain, was seized with a 
fever, and died before he could reach home. He 

^ John Abbot graduated at Harvard College 1784; was a 
tutor there 1787-1792; studied for the ministry; engaged in 
business in Portland ; professor of ancient languages, Bowdoin 
College, for 14 years; then became a trustee and treasurer of 
the College; ill health compelled him to resign and he came to 
Waterford to live with his nephew Rev. John A. Douglass; 
he was afterwards in the McLean Asj'Ium and died at Andover 
aged 84. 

His peculiar habits and manners; his long service at Bow- 
doin as professor, librarian, trustee or treasurer, and his 
unquestioned virtues made him a marked figure in College 
life. He was intei'ested in farming and horticulture. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 



71 



left four children, one, a son, who became a very 
distinguished Unitarian minister in Boston, and 
three daughters, all of whom, Mrs. Robert Haskins, 
Mrs. Lincoln Ripley, and Miss Mary Moody, be- 
came at a very early date permanent residents of 
Waterford. 

The last of these, Miss Emerson, was a person 
of the most exalted character, and of great in- 
tellectual power and capacity. She was wholly 
engaged in literary pursuits. Books were her con- 
stant companions, and correspondence her pas- 
time. And yet it was not the common affairs of 
life with which she was concerned. Her thoughts 
and her studies were of the soul, its destiny, and 
its relations to the future, and to God. She seemed 
to be Hving in a higher and more ethereal sphere 
than the ordinary, and to be occupied wholly with 
the sublimities of the divine and eternal. And she 
had no sympathy, or even patience with slow plod- 
ding and self satisfied mediocrity in anybody. 

As a conversationalist she was entertaining, 
witty, and brilliant, and yet her conversation was 
always upon great themes, never commonplace or 
gossipy. She was outspoken in speech, and plain 
even to bluntness, never hesitating for politeness' 
sake to expose and attack a weak or unguarded 
point in an adversary's argument. The wise and 
the wary stood in awe of her. 

In person Miss Emerson was very slender and 
extremely delicate, with a small, tnin, soft hand, and 
a fair, pale face into which, under the excitement 
of animated conversation or discussion, the color 
would come and make it handsome. In youth and 



72 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

health I think she must have been beautiful. But 
as I remember her she was past middle life and had 
long been an invalid. 

In matters of dress, her taste, if such it could be 
properly called, was severely simple. I think she 
almost literally obeyed the divine injunction to 
"take no thought what ye shall put on." She 
scorned fashion and show, and when she went 
abroad often appeared in habiliments so extremely 
unconventional as to excite the merriment of 
thoughtless and inconsiderate persons. And yet not- 
withstanding this idiosyncrasy, such was the per- 
fect dignity of her bearing and the universal ap- 
preciation of her superior character, all admired 
and respected her. 

She was fond of her distinguished nephews, the 
sons of her brother William, and they, in turn, were 
devoted to her. Ralph Waldo Emerson, often in 
his earlier life, visited her at her Waterford home, 
and all his biographers attribute great influence to 
her in the formation and development of his char- 
acter. 

Miss Emerson has been recently brought to my 
mind very vividly by an interesting circumstance. 
A friend placed in my hands a few months ago a 
little book, beautifully got up, entitled Daily 
Strength for Daily Needs, the design of which is to 
afford for every day in the year a special thought 
for that day's reflection. For each day there is a 
scriptural, poetical, and prose quotation. The 
two latter are designed to continue and emphasize 
the scriptural thought, and are carefully selected 
from the most celebrated authors of ancient and 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 73 

modern times. The prose quotations, especially, 
represent a wide range of brilliant writers; and what 
was my surprise as I looked them over to find the 
name of Mary Moody Emerson. Not that it sur- 
prised me to find her in such exalted company, for 
I never had a doubt of her right to a place among 
literary and learned celebrities, but because I did 
not know of any publications of hers from which 
such apt quotations could be made. But the sur- 
prise was a delight. It was the agreeable sensation 
of meeting a dear and well remembered friend of 
my boyhood under unexpected and peculiarly 
pleasant circumstances, and at once called up very 
forcibly these imperfect reminiscences of Miss 
Emerson in her relation to Waterford. 



A public improvement, first proposed about the 
time of which we are speaking, the discussions of 
which, in the progress of events, involved the whole 
town in a most exciting controversy, was that of 
the "valley road," known to-day as the North 
Waterford road from this village. Before that 
time all travel to the north part of the town had 
been over the hill by way of the old meeting house 
and the so-called 'Tlummer neighborhood," a 
route tedious to travel, by reason of the steep hills, 
in summer, and in winter inclement and sometimes 
impassable by reason of deep and drifting snow. It 
was to overcome these inconveniences, and obtain 
easier grades, with less exposure to the fierce winds 
of winter, that the promoters of the "Valley Road" 



74 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

brought forward their project. That it should 
have been opposed by the thrifty farmers along the 
old hill route, who saw that they were to be side- 
tracked by the proposed change, was not at all to 
be wondered at, nor was it strange that opposition 
should come from those in remoter parts of the 
town who were not to be directly benefited by the 
scheme, and were consequently unwillingly to be 
burdened with the expense, nor yet that objection 
should come from that considerable class in every 
community who oppose any proposition that takes 
money from the public treasury. At all events 
agitation and excitement were intense for several 
years. Feeling ran high and the controversy was 
bitter. But the projectors of the new route tri- 
umphed. The road was built, and has now for 
sixty years, as a public convenience, approved the 
wisdom and foresight of its promotors. I very much 
doubt however whether even the proposition to 
build the new trolley road has caused as much 
excitement. 

VI 

But of all the public events in any way connected 
with the period of my life to which I am alluding 
none is more vividly impressed upon my memory 
than the abandonment of the old meeting house on 
the hill which was town property, and the building 
of a new church for the Congregational Society. 

I shall not attempt to give a detailed account of 
the great struggle, which ended at last in the erec- 
tion of the present neat and beautiful structure, in 
which we are now assembled. There was great 



HISTOEY OF WATERFORD 75 

excitement, intense feeling, and a bitter controversy 
that lasted some years. The contest was over 
location, not at all with reference to the advisability 
of building. Many of the wealthier and more liber- 
al supporters of the church and society lived in the 
northerly part of the town and stoutly resisted the 
selection of a site farther removed from their houses 
than that of the old meeting house, — especially a 
removal to this village. There were times when a 
disruption of the society seemed imminent. But 
calmer counsels finally prevailed. Active opposi- 
tion to the selection of the present site ceased, and 
to outward appearance, at least, there came to be a 
general acquiescence in the arrangement as it now 
exists. 

I remember well the rejoicings and the congrat- 
ulations when the work was finished, and some of 
the great preparations for the dedication. I remem- 
ber rehearsal upon rehearsal of the anthem that 
was to be the central musical feature in the pro- 
gram of exercises. And I remember the great per- 
formance. The day was a notable one and there 
was a large audience. It seems to me I can almost 
see now Mr. Sanders at the bass-viol, Capt. Chap- 
lin at the great double-bass, and Enoch Perry with 
his flute, and that I can hear Miss Eliza Ann 
Hamlin's sharp ringing soprano, Luther Houghton's 
sonorous, musical tenor, and Robert L. Allen's 
deep, sweet, melodious bass, as the words rang out, 
"Lift up your heads, Oh! ye gates ; and be ye lifted up, 
ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall 
come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, 
strong and mighty." I seem to see a vast audience 



76 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

standing with their faces turned to the choir, and 
the good pastor leaning at his desk in rapt atten- 
tion. Only this of that great service I recall. No- 
thing more. Now how changed! The instruments 
are relegated to the things of the past. The per- 
formers are gone. The voices that I heard are still 
and silent in the grave. Even the choir loft itself 
is closed forever. The beloved pastor is at rest, 
and has gone to his long and rich reward. And of 
the audience that I saw few, very few, remain to 
recall with me the incidents of the day. But the 
church, the structure that our fathers built, re- 
mains; and, with each recurring Sabbath morn, at 
the summons of the sweet toned bell, the people 
gather as they did of old, to find it still, as then, 
the temple of the living God, the very gate of 
heaven. 

Note. 

Thomas Treadwell Stone, son of Solomon and Hep- 
zibah (Treadwell) Stone, was born at Waterford Feb. 9th, 
ISOl; graduated at Bowdoin College, 1820, where his room 
mate was Jacob Abbot, the author of the RoHo Books; settled 
over the church in Andover, Maine, 1824-30; Preceptor of 
Bridgton Academy, 1830-32; Congregational Church, East 
Machias, Me., 1832-46; First Parish, Salem, Mass., 1846-52; 
Bolton, Mass, 1852-60; died at Bohon Nov. 13th, 1895. He 
received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Bowdoin, 1868; 
was an early abolitionist and lectured for the Anti-Slavery Soci- 
ety of Massachusetts; published "Sermons." 1854; ''Sermons 
on War," 1829; "Oxford County Sketches," 1830; delivered a 
course of lectures on English Literature before the Lowell 
Institute; was a member of the Transcendental Club with 
Emerson, James Freeman Clark, George Ripley, Margaret 
Fuller, Theodore Parker and F. H. Hedge. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 77 

Isaac Knight was born in Waterford, Dec. 29th, 1802; 
graduated at Bowdoin College, 1829; settled at Hill, N. H., 
1831-37; Franklin, X. H., 1837-48; Fisherville, N. H., 1848-50. 
Died July 25, 1850. 

William Warren was born at Waterford Oct. 20th, 1806; 
entered Bowdoin College with the class of 1837 after a course 
at Phillips Exeter; Andover Theological Seminary, 1838; 
settled at Windham, 'Me., 1839-49; at Upton, Mass., 1849-56; 
District Secretary- for Northern New England of American 
Board of Foreign Missions; A. M., Bowdoin College, 1858; 
D. D., Bowdoin College, 1870. Died Jan., 1879. 

Published "Household Consecration." "The Spirit's 
Sword." "Twelve Years among the Children." "These for 
Those." 

Cyrus Hamlin was born at Waterford, Jan. 5th, 1811; 
apprenticed to a silver.smith, Portland, 1827; studied at Bridg- 
ton Academy and graduated from Bowdoin College, 1834; 
completed his theological studies at Bangor Seminaiy, 1837; 
preached in Portland and Worcester; began Missionary work 
in Constantinople, 1839; President of Robert College, 1860; 
professor in Bangor Seminary, 1877-80; President of Middle- 
bury College, 1880-85; D. D., Bowdoin College, 1854; S. T. D., 
Harvard University, 1861; LL. D., New York University, 
1870; died at Portland Aug. 8th, 1900. 

Lyman Jew^tt, the youngest of nine sons of Nathan and 
Hannah (Emerson) Jcwett, v\as born at Waterford, March 
9th, 1813; removed to Buckfield when he was 8 j-ears old; 
came to Boston, 1832, and became a member of what is now 
Clarendon street church ; studied at Worcester Academy ; A. B., 
Brown University, 1843; Newton Theological School, 1846; 
preached in Webster, Mass., 1846-1848; ordained at Boston, 
1848, and went to the Telugu Mission, India; in India until 
1886; was a member of the Bible Translation Committee in 
Madras; translated the New Testament into Telugu and was 
the author of a commentary on Matthew's Gospel in Telugu; 
D. D., Brown University, 1872; died at Fitchburg, Jan. 17th, 
1897. 

S.\muel Moody Haskins born at Waterford May 25th, 
1813; graduated from Union College, 1836; graduated at 



78 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

General Theological Seminary, 1839, and became Rector of 
St. Mark's, Brooklyn, where he remained 61 years, dying 
March 7th, 1900; received the degree D. D. from Union 
College, 1862. 

"Dr. Haskins was over six feet in height, of noble command- 
ing presence and grave dignified demeanor. Mentally he was 
always the same, calm, reliable and cheerful. No one ever saw 
him angry or excited." 

Samuel Haskill, to whom reference is made, was the son 
of John and Thirza Stone Haskill, who were married in 
Waterford, 1805 ; some of their children were born in Waterford, 
but Samuel was born at North Bridgton, March 20th, 1818. 
He prepared for college at Shurtleff College, Alton, 111. , and 
at the Connecticut Literary Institute, Suffield, Conn., and 
graduated at Brown University, 1845, and in Theology at 
the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, 1847. He 
was settled at Detroit, 1847-52; Kalamazoo, Mich., 1852-71; 
Ann Arbor, 1871-88; was associate editor Christian Herald, 
1888-90; professor of Bible Study, Kalamazoo College, 1890- 
98. D. D., Madison University, 1867; author of "Heroes and 
Hierarchs" and has published historical pamphlets and dis- 
courses; died at Kalamazoo, July 4th, 1900. 



MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES. 



PETITION OF EPHRAIM CHAMBERLAIN & ORS OF 
WATERFORD, 1796. 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

To the Honorable the Senate and the Honorable 
the House of Representatives in General Cort 
Assembled. 

Agreeable to an Order of this Honorable Cort 
of the 27th of January last dyrecting the Inhabi- 
tants of the Plantation of Waterford to appear and 
shew cause if any they have, why the Petition of 
Stephen Jewett and others praying that the 
Plantation of Waterford might be incorporated 
by the name of Waterford with the exception of 
the three Eastermost Tears of lots might not be 
granted — 

We the Subscribers Inhabitants of the Planta- 
tion of Waterford offer the following reasons why 
the above mentioned prayer may not be granted. 

lly Because the roads happily convean the 
present Center whare as any one will be incon- 
venient occasioned by ponds &c. 

21y Because there is a River runing through 
said Plantation which will cause the Inhabitants 
to build Two extensive Bridges with little more 
than One Tear of lots opposite said Bridges Joining 
the three above mentioned Tears of lots — 



80 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

31y Because the owners of the Soil of the Three 
tears of lots (excepting about five lots) own farms 
and other Landed property in said Plantation and 
we pray that they might not be sepperated. 

41y Because the thirty and One Signers of 
the above mentioned Petition living on the west 
and northwest part of the Plantation wish to get 
set off one fifth part of the Plantation for no reason 
than to convean themselves with the Public build- 
ings here after to be erected — wareas they do not 
own one Inch of the Three above mentioned Tears 
of lots, and own but about Twenty tow Lots of 
land, and whereas the Owners of One Hundred and 
Eighty two lort of Land are opposd to the prayer 
of the above mentioned Petition. 

These being our reasons and at the same time 
Praying that the Plantation of Waterford might 
be Incorporated by the name of Waterford, agrea- 
ble to the boundaries or plan herewith presented. 
We humble conceive will be amply sufficient to 
prevent the above mentioned prayer from being 
granted we however gladly submit them to your 
Honours better Judgment — and as in duty bound 
will ever Pray 

Waterford. April the 22d 1796— 

Ephraim Chamberlin 
Colman B. Watson 
Asa Johnson John Jewel 

Malbory Kingman Jacob Gibson 

Abijah Brown William Brown 

David Mcwain Joseph Barker 

Joseph Killgore Solomon Stone 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 81 

Benja Killgore Jonathan Whitney 

Isaac Smith Phineas Whitney 

Stephen Sanderson John Nurse 

Ebenezer Moulton Joel Stone 

Josiah Shaw James H. Robbing 

Africa HamHn Benjamin Hale 

Jonathan Longley Daniel Barker 

Moses Stone Eli Longley 

Asaph Brown Silas Brown 

David Hammond America Hamlin 

Elijah Swan Joel Atherton 

Jonathan Bobbins John Atherton 

Oliver Hapgood Zechariah Fletcher 
Thads Brown 

In the House of Represents May 31 1796 

Read & committed to the 
standg Committee on applications for Incorpora- 
tion of towns &c to hear the parties & report 

Sent up for Concurrence 
Edw. H, Robbins Spkr. 

Note. Warren's History of Waterford contains an account 
of the incorporation of the town. 

TO THE HONORABLE THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSA- 
CHUSETTS IN GENERAL COURT ASSEMBLED 

Your petitioners being a Committee appointed 
by the town of Waterford in the County of York — 
Humbly sheweth That the County line as estab- 
lished by the old province Law divides the Town 
of Waterford, leaving about one fourth part in 



82 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

the County of Cumberland, and the remainder 
in the County of York. . . That about two 
years since, said Town was Incorporated in the 
County of York — before which time the Inhabi- 
tants had allways supposed the Township lay 
mostly in the County of Cumberland, in conse- 
quence of which all actions at Law were com- 
mensed. . . Deeds recorded. . . And Es- 
tates settled in the County of Cumberland — 
That by the said Incorporating Act, the Inhabitants 
of said Town are laid under many disadvantages, 
as the distance from the Shire Town in the County 
of York is about Ninety Miles, whereas the distance 
from the Shire Town in the County of Cumberland 
is not more than Fifty Miles. . And as 

Portland is the only maratime Town with which 
the Inhabitants of Waterford have any dealings, 
they have frequent occasions to travel there on the 
common concerns of Life, for which reason their 
Law matters might be transacted at Portland 
with little more than half the Expense it could be 
at York where they have no other business but 
that of the Law. . . Therefore the prayer of 
your Petitioners is that the whole of the Town of 
Waterford may be annexed to the County of Cum- 
berland . . or that your petitioners may 
relieved in such other manner, as your Honours 
shall think best ... and as in duty bound 
shall ever Pray. 

Stephen Cummings 
Thadeus Brown 
America Hamlin 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 83 

In Senate June 7th 1799. Read and committed 
to the , standing Committee on applications for 
the incorporation of Towns to hear the parties 
and report. 

Sent down for concurrence 

John C. Jones Prest. pro tern 

In the House of Represents June 8, 1799. Read 

and Concurred Edwd H. Robbins, Spkr. 

Note. Until 1760 the County of York included the whole 
Province of Maine. In that year the counties of Cumberland 
and Lincoln were established. Oxford County was not 
established until 1805. The foregoing petition explains the 
use of "Cumberland" in the petition printed page 62, War- 
ren's History. Old maps show the town divided by the 
County line which ran North and South; the Westerly and 
larger part in York County, the Easterly in Cumberland. 

The House and Senate concurred in sending the petition 
to a committee; no further action seems to have been taken. 

TO THE HONORABLE THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES IN GENERAL COURT ASSEMBLED. 

the petition of the Inhabitants of the town of 
Waterford by their Committee humbly sheweth — 
that on the sixth day of April last at a legal 
Meeting of said inhabitants, we Eber Rice, Solomon 
Stone and Thadeus Brown were chosen a Committee 
to address your honors on the following subject: 
(viz) that whereas the proprietors of said town did 
reserve the twenty-first right of land in said toAvii- 
ship for the use of Schools, it being the full com- 
plement of land reserved in the grant of said town 
for that purpose that the same vests in a wild 
uncultivated State, that by a sale of said land the 



84 HISTORY OF WATERFORD 

said town would receive Great and singular ad- 
vantage, as well as the public at large, as some of 
the lands were they to be disposed of to individuals, 
would be put under immediate cultivation and of 
course would afford assistance in defraying internal 
as well as governmental Expenses; therefore your 
petitioners humbly pray that your honors would 
grant liberty to said town of Waterford to sell the 
aforesaid right of land and appropriate the income 
thereof to such a use as was intended by the grant 
thereof (viz) for schools, and as in duty bound will 
ever pray. 

Eber Rice 

Solomon Stone } Committee 

Thads Brown 

Waterford, May 26, A. D. 1801 

PETITION OF TOWN OF WATERFORD 

TO THE HONORABLE SENATE AND THE HONORABLE 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN GENERAL COURT 
ASSEMBLED AT BOSTON IN JAN'y A. D. 1806 

The undersigned chosen a committee by the 
inhabitants of the town Waterford to remonstrate 
to your honours against the town of Fryburgh 
being a half shire town. 

Humbly Sheweth: That we are deeply impressed 
with a sense of the impolliey and inconveniency of 
Fryburgh being made a half shire town; viewing 
the measure not calculated to promote the welfare 
of the county of Oxford but on the contrary to 
divide and distract the interests of the same; and 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 85 

presuming that "well founded and powerful 
objections" will be presented to your honours from 
sources highly respectable against Fryburgh l)eing 
establishd a half shire, we forbear being more 
particular but submit the matter to your honours 
in full confidence that you will do right— And we as 
in duty bound will ever pray — 

Jona Stone 1 

America Hamlin V Committee 

Jona Houghton J 

Waterford Deer. 9th 1805 

Note. In 180G the County of Oxford was divided into two 
districts for the recording of deeds; the eastern Registry at 
Paris and the Western at Fryeburg. 



A PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY, 'ARTEMUS 

WARD.'* 



Chamber's Journal, Vol. 42, p. 357, 1865. "Artemus Ward." 
Quarterly Review, Vol. 122, p. 224, 1866. "Yankee Humor." 
Every Saturday, Vol. 2, p. 765, 1866. "Artemus Ward in 

London." 
Every Saturday, Vol. 3, p. 457, 1867. "Artemus Ward." 

These two articles appeared respectively in the Spectator 
and London Review. 

Scribner's, Vol. 16, p. 785, 1878. "Artemus Ward at Cleve- 
land," by C. L.. Ruthrauff. 
Scribner's, Vol. 21, p. 144, 1880. "Artemus Ward," by E. S. 

Nadal, illustrated. 
Scribner's, Vol. 22, p. 46, 1881. "Artemus Ward; his Home 

and Family," by Don C. Seitz, illustrated. 
Good Words, Vol. 23, p. 174 and 266, 1882; "Artemus Ward." 

A sketch from life by H. R. Haweis, M. A. 
Littell's Living Age, Vol. 177, p. 301, 1888. "Artemus Ward" 

from "Time." 
Overland Monthly, Vol. 18, p. 54, 1891. "The Real Artemus 

Ward," by Enoch Knight. 
Century, Vol. 46, p. 132, 1893. "Relics of Artemus Ward," 

by Don C. Seitz, illustrated. 
The Bookman, Vol. 8, p. 563, 1899. "The First Books of Some 

American Authors," by Luther S. Livingston, illustrated. 
New England Magazine, Vol. 22, p. 726, 1900. "Maine in 

Literature," by William L Cole, illustrated. 
Century, Vol. 63, p. 151, 1901. "Recollections of Artemus 

Ward," James F. Ryder. P. 45 "Retrospect of American 

Humor," by W. P. Trent, illustrated. 

♦Charles F. Bhowne, "Artemus Ward," was born at Waterford, April 
20th, 1834. It is interesting to note that Seba Sniitli, "Major Jaelc Down- 
ing" was born in Buckfield, 1792, and lived for a time at North Bridgton. 



HISTORY OF WATERFORD 87 

Putnam's Monthly, Vol. , p. 599, Feb., 1907. Charles F. 

Browne "Artemus Ward," Enoch Knight, illustrated. 
Pine Tree Magazine, Vol. 6, p. 241, 1906. "To Artemus Ward 
in Elysium," by Harry Lyman Koopman. 

"My Own Story" John Townsend Trowbridge, Houghton 
Mifflin & Co., 1903, page 181. 

"Artemus Ward's Best Stories," with introduction by 
William D. Howells, edited by Clifton Johnson and illustrated 
by Frank A. Nankivell, Harper's, 1912. 

Artemus Ward's complete works have been jjublished in 
England by Chatto & Windus, and in the United States by 
G. W. Dillingham Co., New York 

The Early American Humorists. Boston, Small May- 
nard & Co., 1907. 

American Humorists. H. R. Haweis, N. Y. and 
London, Funk & Wagnalls Co. 

Th Bentzon; Litterature et Mocurs Etrangercs Etudes. 
Paris 18S2. Vol. 2, p. 38. 

E. S. Nadal; Essays at Home and Elsewhere, London, 
1882. p. U6. 

Albert B^gelow Paine; ]\Lark Twain a Biography, 1912. 
Vol. 1 p. 2'38 et seq. 

Practical Jokes with Artemus Ward including the story 
of the Man who fought Cats, by Mark Twain, and other 
Humorists. London, John Camden Hotten, 1872. 

Artemus Ward, His Book, N. Y., Carleton, 1864. 

Artemus Ward, His Travels, N. Y., Carleton, 1865. 

Artemus Ward in London, N. Y., Carleton, 1867. 

Artemus Ward, His Travels Among the Mormons, London, 
John Camden Hotten, 1865. 

Artemus Ward's Lecture (as delivered at the Egyptian 
Hall, London), London, Hotten, N. Y., Carleton, 1869. 



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